


if I'm honest, it feels like love

by HomebodyNobody



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Best Friends, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Family Feels, Idiots in Love, Meet-Cute, Mistaken Identity, New Year's Eve, Picnics, Secret Relationship, Sisters, Soulmates, Texting, kind of, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomebodyNobody/pseuds/HomebodyNobody
Summary: The plane has three seats on one side, and two on the other. She looks down at her ticket. 17D. A window seat. There’s one open spot, and a messy, blonde head of hair sitting next to it, glowing in the last of the daylight cutting through the plane’s windows. The guy, because it is a guy with the shining golden mop, looks up and sees her walking down the aisle toward him. His eyes are a clear, cutting blue, and the minute they lock onto hers, she feels like she’s seen him before, like she’s known him all her life. Some odd part of her sees this stranger and relaxes completely, her heart sighing ‘oh, hello. It’s you.’-----Kiara has been coerced by her mother into coming home from her world travels for Christmas, and meets a handsome (and oddly familiar) stranger on the  plane. JJ’s been deep-sea fishing in Alaska and has been dragged home to the OBX by his buddies for the holidays. They end up having more in common than they might think.
Relationships: JJ Maybank/Kiara Carrera, JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks), Kiara Carrera/JJ Maybank, Sarah Cameron & Kiara, Sarah Cameron & Kiara Carrera, Sarah Cameron/John B. Routledge
Comments: 20
Kudos: 96





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so   
> this fic STARTED as 'a cute lil christmas oneshot' and is now, ofc, the monster that you see before you   
> fun fact! this meet cute is based on real life! my parents met this way -- they were both flying home for christmas, my mom got put on standby, and the last open seat was next to my dad! ofc they did not have the following dramatics -- he called her when they got back to the city they both lived in and they dated like normal people, but ofc it's more fun to embellish their story than write it as-is   
> also, I wrote this in /three weeks/ and am like a lil bit lowkey proud of that!! (esp cause I published chap 3 of home and chap 1 of caught between (with Katie ofc) in the meantime!) so that's exciting   
> okay I am done stalling u   
> please enjoy!

**_Kiwi:_ ** if i kill a man you’d get me out of it right 

**_Sbarro:_ ** technically you texting me about it makes it premeditated so at this point it would be 

kinda hard 

**_Kiwi:_ ** boo u whore  🤬

**_Sbarro:_ ** Kiara we do not slutshame in this household 

Also y are we pondering homicide 

**_Kiwi:_ ** u say ‘we’ like its a group effort when u clearly can’t even get me out of prison

This fucking useless-ass flight attendant won’t switch my seat    
I will not sit next to the bathrooms Sarah I will puke

**_Sbarro:_ ** i told u to buy ur tickets in advance 

**_Kiwi:_ ** I DID BUY THEM IN ADVANCE 

**_Sbarro:_ ** A WEEK IS NOT ADVANCE IT IS *CHRISTMAS* 

**_Kiwi:_ ** stop being right 

**_Sbarro:_ ** never  😘

Kiara drops her phone on the counter with an exaggerated clatter, and the girl behind the computer gives her an irritated look. The airport is packed to the gills, the holiday season in full swing as college students and exhausted families with small children try to get back to wherever their parents live for Christmas. Noise fills the cavernous space, bouncing off glass walls and tile floors, echoing back in on itself, making the enormous terminal feel claustrophobic and stifling. Christmas carols play over the tannoy, joyful and tinny and false, the last of the afternoon sunlight glaring through the windows, landing in golden beams across the floor and making her sweat. Kiara wants to kill everyone here and then maybe herself. 

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the girl says, not for the first time. “Standby is the best that I can do.” She looks at Kiara, dead behind the eyes, and, as frustrated as she is, Kiara knows this poor, beleaguered worker is having a worse day than her. She’d just wanted to switch seats. Every time she’s sat next to the bathrooms on a flight, she’s puked. Something about the small space and the sickening smell is a lethal combination. So it’s either standby or six hours of crippling nausea and at least two stomach evacuations. 

“Okay,” she relents. “Put me on standby.” The girl looks so relieved she might actually cry. 

“Really?” the girl asks, her tone dropping out of the fake, high customer-service timbre. “I mean --” she stutters, and then clicks a button on her screen before pitching her voice back up. “I do have to let you know that by transferring to standby, you do give up your current reserved seat.” She looks up at Kiara warily, meeting her deadpan gaze with a touch of fear, like Kiara is about to lose her shit on this poor girl. “... and due to the holiday season, you may not be seated on this flight.” That one sets Kiara’s jaw a bit. “Do you understand and accept these conditions?” Kiara blows out a sigh, and she’s exhausted, sick of bureaucracy and sick of travelling, ready to be home in her own bed, eat her mom’s food and fall asleep on the living room couch with the fireplace going and her cat tucked into the curve of her knee. She’s a hardened world traveller, doesn’t often find herself craving home, but this is her last flight of three, she stinks to high heaven, and she’s ready to be done moving, just for a little while. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay, fine, whatever.” She doesn’t want to wait for another flight, but she wants to vomit even less. 

“...okay,” the girl says, and clicks a few more things. She looks up at Kiara with an empty, vacant smile. “You’re on our standby list! If someone else wants to switch seats or does not check in or make the flight on time, you will be moved to their seat. If all passengers board as planned, you will have to wait for the 8:45 flight.” That’s four hours from now. 

“Thanks,” Kiara says, and turns away from the counter, picking up her cumbersome backpack and hitching it over her shoulder. It’s been full since Laos, the zippers getting harder and harder to pull together, and it’s a miracle she managed to get all of her things in it after Thailand, where she spent months at an elephant rescue. Her mother had some things to say about that, just like she did with everything. 

Kiara had been happy at the elephant rescue, one of the volunteers that had been there the longest, but then her mother called to guilt-trip her about the holidays. She hadn’t come home for Christmas the previous year, instead spending it in a ski chalet with a very handsome and romantic Frenchman in the alps. He’d written a book of poems while they were there. (At least six of them were about her legs.) Anna had somehow wiggled underneath all her excuses and guilted her into coming back to the OBX for Christmas. 

Part of her was looking forward to seeing her family, however miniscule it might be. Attachment wasn’t really her thing, and sometimes she missed being around people that just knew her, without having to try. She’d left the french poet behind in the switch to a new continent. He wasn’t a traveller, not really -- just fancied himself one. She’d travelled with friends, of course, picking up people and sticking with them through a few countries. 

Sarah had even come out to join her for a month, and they did France and Italy and Spain, but Sarah wasn’t cut out for youth hostels and aching feet the way Kiara was, and, eventually, went home. Everyone she travelled with --  they always went home, eventually. Or fell in love or got a call from their sibling about an ailing parent. They were attached, in a way that Kiara isn’t. Her parents, who have absolutely zero understanding of her life choices and are baffled by time differences, rarely ever call, and her little sister, Mikayla, is busy with her own life, starting college and being the perfect child without knowing it, as always. 

Kiara has an environmental science degree and certification to teach English as a second language. She could have an adult life, if she wanted one. She could settle down, get married maybe, have kids and work a nine to five and live the life her parents always had planned for her; but the idea is almost as nauseating as sitting next to the bathrooms on a six hour flight from Seattle to Raleigh. She still hasn’t been to South America, or West Africa, or the Middle East. There are hundreds more things to see, foods to try and festivals to attend. Why waste a life dreaming when you can go do? 

When they call for volunteers to gate-check baggage, Kiara unclips her day-bag from the front of her backpack and loops the long sticker around one of the straps. The gate attendant takes it with an empty smile, and she returns it tightly. She’s ready to be done with all of this. Digging her earbuds out of her day bag, which she packed only yesterday but is an unfortunate mess due to the lack of internal pockets, she collapses in one of the uncomfortable chairs, leaving one headphone out to listen for her name over the tannoy. The flight doesn’t board for another hour, and she pulls her phone out to text Sarah. 

**_Kiwi:_ ** i’m on standby 

**_Sbarro:_ ** is that a good thing or a bad thing 

**_Kiwi:_ ** well I might not make this flight so 

**_Sbarro:_ ** for future reference that definitely classifies as a bad thing

**_Kiwi:_ ** I’m slightly less homicidal

*Slightly*

**_Sbarro:_ ** I’m proud of you, babe 

**_Kiwi:_ ** thanks you should be 

**_Sbarro:_ ** hey btw do u need a ride home from the airport 

**_Kiwi:_ ** no my parents are picking me up 

Why? 

**_Sbarro:_ ** my very handsome bane of my fucking existence has just informed me we are picking 

up his best friend from the airport this evening 

He does not know what time the flight lands

I am actually going to slit his throat 

**_Kiwi:_ ** you know you texting me about it technically makes it premeditated 

**_Sbarro:_ ** if u die in a fiery plane crash I will not weep for u

**_Kiwi:_** 😘

Kiara loves Sarah, she really does. They’re an odd pair, and even Kiara’s own mother is surprised they kept in touch through college and after. Sarah went to UMass, graduated as valedictorian, and then promptly followed her family legacy by attending law school at UNC Chapel Hill. Kiara did her undergrad in Charleston, and after a semester abroad in Italy, fell in love with traveling, graduating a year early, and promptly fucking off to be a full-time vagabond. Sarah is basically everything Kiara’s parents wanted for her life. 

Excepting, of course, the surf-bum boyfriend she picked up during the summer she interned at her grandfather’s law firm. But Kiara’s met John B, and he seems like a great guy, even with his total lack of direction. They work, somehow, John B content to trail after Sarah, encouraging her in all she does. He’ll make one hell of a trophy husband. They invited Kiara to their New Year’s party, and she’s looking forward to seeing both of them.

Eventually, her flight begins to board, and she sits up, paying scrupulous attention to the screen above the desk, listening closely to the announcements. The gate waiting area slowly empties, and there’s a last call announcement that makes her a little nervous. Then, they start on the standby list, and, to Kiara’s surprise, she’s not at the top. There’s a few others standing around, looking anxious, and relief settles in her stomach when her name comes over the loudspeaker. She launches herself out of her seat and hands her ticket gratefully to the gate attendant, who scans it and scribbles down her new seat number. Once she’s through, they close the door to the jetway behind her. Clearly, her new seat was the last one available. 

She catches up to the end of the boarding line, and it creeps slowly forward, disappearing into the side of the plane. Underneath her wide headband, Kiara’s forehead begins to sweat. A hardened world traveler with a fear of planes is an interesting oxymoron, and yet, one she lives. She usually takes a benadryl and knocks the fuck out so she doesn’t have to sit in a tin can thirty thousand feet in the air and like, be aware of her highly probable impending death. She tries to take trains and buses when she can, but, of course, across continents, planes are unfortunately necessary. 

Keeping her breathing even, she finds herself standing in front of the economy cabin, staring over rows of seats, the last one looking for her own. The plane has three seats on one side, and two on the other, and she looks down at her ticket. 17D. A window seat. There’s one open spot, and a messy, blonde head of hair sitting next to it, glowing in the last of the daylight cutting through the plane’s windows. The guy, because it is a guy with the shining golden mop, looks up and sees her walking down the aisle toward him. His eyes are a clear, cutting blue, and the minute they lock onto hers, she feels like she’s seen him before, like she’s known him all her life. Some odd part of her sees this stranger and relaxes completely, her heart sighing ‘ _ oh, hello. It’s you.’ _

He very nearly launches himself out of his seat to let her sit down, long legs nearly tripping over the hems of his baggy, torn levi’s, well-worn and stained with engine oil. He’s wearing a navy blue button up, an index card sticking out of his shirt pocket. When she slides in past him, he smells of evergreen and salt air, deep and masculine. Her heart flips up to sit at the base of her throat for just a second, and she’s at least grateful he smells good, instead of having to sit next to someone who reeks of body odor or something worse. She settles herself, lifting her hips up awkwardly to get at the seatbelt, and he sits back down, a jumping mess of energy. As he bounces his knee, she cuts her eyes to the side, hoping he’s not going to be this jumpy the whole flight. She’s nervous just looking at him. 

“Hi,” he says.    


“Hey,” she says, not making eye contact. She’s had chatty airplane seat partners before. She’s not a fan. Putting her headphones back in, she notices that he keeps looking at her in brief flashes before focusing his eyes on the seat back in front of him, like he can’t control the way his gaze slides over to her. She watches his hands on his knees, tanned, with long, slender fingers. Scars and scrapes dot the backs of them, cuticles absolutely chewed to shit. The skin there is rough and dry, and that, combined with his worn-in jeans and large, well-used boots makes her think he probably works with his hands. 

The flight attendants start the safety demonstration, and he actually watches, like he’s grateful for something to pay attention to. She studies him from the corner of her eye, his sharp jawline and pert, round nose. He’s actually really fucking cute. His eyes flicker over, and she drops her head on an embarrassed laugh when he sees her watching him. He smiles, too, ducking his chin to his chest. If she wasn’t exhausted and certain that she smells like someone who’s been traveling for 16 straight hours (which she has been), she might even be grateful for the opportunity. But, flirting isn’t her greatest talent as it is, and she doesn’t want to attempt it while looking and smelling like a drowned rat and already anxious from the circumstance. 

She’s mildly grateful when he puts his headphones in as the safety demonstration ends, thankful that he’s not going to try and force any awkward conversation. The plane starts to taxi away from the gate, and she pulls her bag onto her lap, unhooking her water bottle and unzipping it, digging for her bottle of benadryl. Her day bag is a tangled mess of charger, lip balm, wallet, a few snacks, and many other things that she’s accumulated in the small backpack over months of using it essentially as a purse across months and continents. She takes things out and rests them in her lap, doing her best to balance them all. 

Cute blond boy says something, and she pauses, taking out an earphone. “What?” she asks, looking up at him. 

Heat crawls up his neck as the look on his face tells her he might now be thinking better of it. “I said, um,” he starts again, “I, uh --” She looks at him expectantly, and the joke spills out of his mouth in one breath, regret that he had to repeat it clear on his face. “When was the last time you cleaned out your bag?” 

It’s jarring enough that it’s funny, honestly, the sarcastic, pointed jab. She blinks twice, taken aback, and then, replying in a deadpan tone, she says; “last night.” 

The guy swallows his laugh, tucking his tongue into his cheek and smiling in a guarded way that tells her he didn’t used to. “Shit,” he says, “so that didn’t land right.” 

She’s smiling now, too, mostly because his is so infectious, joy sparkling in those blue, blue eyes. “Was there any way that it could have landed right?” 

He shakes his head and laughs, one large hand tugging at the blond mess over his forehead. “Probably not, honestly,” he says, and she lets herself feel smug, just for a second. He doesn’t say anything more, and she goes back to digging through her bag. She reaches the bottom, and the little white bottle is nowhere to be found. She must have left it in her backpack. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” she whispers emphatically, and the guy looks at her once again. 

“You okay?” he asks, genuine concern and curiosity sparking in his expression. 

“Yeah,” she sighs, tight and untruthful. She puts everything back into the small bag with shaking hands. “Just forgot something, is all.” 

“What’d you forget?” he asks without missing a beat, and then presses his lips together when she looks up at him with one raised eyebrow. 

“It’s uh --” she starts, surprising herself. “Nothing, really. Just --” and he’s looking at her, waiting patiently for her to respond, and his eyes are really fucking blue. “I don’t love planes,” she finds herself admitting. “I usually take something, but I don’t think I packed it.” 

“Oh, shit,” he answers. “That sucks.” She shrugs, trying to keep her building panic trapped at the bottom of her throat, doing her best not to let it spill out and over this handsome, blundering stranger. “Usually I’d uh,” he starts, and half a smile has appeared on his face, tugging up the corner of his mouth, mischievous and charming. “Offer you something,” he finishes, leaning his head to the side, blond hair falling over his eyes, “but that sort of thing is usually, well. Frowned upon, in these environments.” 

“What,” she counters, “didn’t bring any edibles?” He looks at her then, full-on and surprised, opening his mouth to respond and then just shaking his head, smiling. 

“No,” he replies, “in fact I did not.”

“Shame,” she says, and they both laugh. 

“I’m JJ,” he says, offering a hand to shake. She does. It’s warm and dry and swallows hers. 

“Kiara,” she says. The plane turns onto the runway and the jet engines kick in. She slams back in her seat and squeezes her eyes shut. “ _ Ohfuckihatethispart _ ,” she breathes. It’s not until a hand wraps around hers that she realizes she’s said it out loud. Her eyes snap open, and then over to him. 

There’s a smile on his face, but his eyes are serious and genuine. “It’s okay,” he says. “Everything is gonna be fine.” She takes a breath and widens her eyes at him before closing them again. He goes to let go of her hand, but she squeezes it tight, and he stays. It doesn’t feel awkward, somehow, like maybe holding hands with a stranger should be. It feels natural, and comforting, and she’s grateful for the anchor, even as her mind swirls in on itself like a cyclone, her thoughts crashing over each other. She bites her lip as she feels the landing gear leave the runway. 

“Hey,” JJ says, and she looks at him, “This is my favorite part.” He’s pointing out the window. Slowly, she looks out, and, in one breath, the anxiety rushes out of her. Seattle falls away below them, the city washed in gray light as the sun slips below the horizon. The lakes shimmer like mirages, everlasting and beautiful even as the city grows into the cracks and crevices of the land. The sunset reflects off the windows of the houses on Queen Anne hill, a flashing spectrum of reds and oranges. As they climb higher, Mt. Baker rises above the tangle of interstate and city streets, white and noble and shining. 

“Holy shit,” she sighs. 

“Yeah,” he says. He’s not looking out the window. 

Eventually, the city falls away, lost in the darkening dusk, and she leans back into her seat, noticing for the first time that he’s still holding her hand. She looks back to their entwined fingers, golden and smooth light brown skin tangled together. He does too, and, when their eyes meet, they both pull away. He opens his mouth to apologize, but she speaks first. 

“Thanks,” she says, and his eyebrows pull together in a flash, his head tilting just the slightest bit. “For distracting me.” 

He lifts his chin in understanding. “No problem,” he says, and then grins, but there’s something not quite genuine about it. “I’ve been told I’m an excellent distraction,” he says. 

“Really?” she asks, and he nods. 

“Oh yeah,” he says, sarcasm flooding his voice. “Put it on my report cards and everything. I was  _ constantly _ distracting people. They gave me an award.” 

“Oh I bet they did,” she laughs, and, for the first time, she’s not grinding her teeth at the thought of spending six hours trapped next to a complete stranger. This flight might even turn out okay. 

They chat idly for a while. She learns that he’s been up in Alaska for the past year, working on deep-sea fishing boats. (He sighs deeply when she says ‘like deadliest catch?’ and says ‘yeah, kinda.’) He’s flying back to North Carolina to spend Christmas with his buddies, because they wouldn’t let him ‘sulk up north in the dark by himself.’ She laughs at that, tells him about her family, about how Anna guilted her away from her dream in Thailand and now she doesn’t know how she’s going to escape them post-holidays and get back to traveling the world. He seems interested in that -- her travels, not her family -- and asks her questions about what countries she’s been to, what she’s seen and done and tasted. 

She tells him about getting caught in a monsoon in Bangkok, the stray cats on Mykonos, even shares the story of her 22nd birthday in Brussels, rolling down the street with her friends Helena and Belon, calling her sister and handing her over to an Australian and an Englishman named Joe. “Mickey tells that story all the time,” she says, smiling fondly at the thought of her. They weren’t close growing up -- a four year age gap isn’t conducive to siblings being friends, but she knows Mikayla wants to get out of the OBX, too, maybe get a taste of what Kiara has seen and explored. She asks if he has any siblings, but he goes a little blank and politely redirects the question. 

It’s been almost an hour when she realizes she’s been talking nearly the whole time, letting him encourage her, answering all of his questions and laughing at his sarcastic asides. She apologizes, but he shakes his head. 

“There’s not much interesting about me,” he says, looking at his lap. 

“Oh come on,” she prods, and she’s leaning forward now, eyes shining, anxiety about the plane almost completely forgotten, her chin in her hand as she leans on the armrest between them. “You’ve got to have some thrilling tales from the storm-wrought seas of the north Pacific.” 

He laughs, his eyes shining as he watches her, glowing with humor and something else. “You’re something else, you know that?” he says, and she shrugs, ducking her head as heat crawls up her neck. 

“Nah,” she says. “I’m just a fancy kind of bum.” 

“Listen,” he says, “I’ve been a bum. Your life sounds pretty fantastic, considering.” She looks at him with curiosity, then, wondering at the story behind such an offhand remark, but then a flight attendant comes up with the first round of drinks, interrupting them. She gets a gin and tonic, and him a coke. 

She raises an eyebrow as he accepts the cup. “I don’t drink on airplanes,” he says, in answer. And then; “anymore.” She nods, remembering a flight to London that was particularly hellish and the reason she can’t drink Captain Morgan anymore, and doesn’t ask anything else. When the conversation starts to peter out, he pulls out a deck of cards and tilts it toward her, an invitation. 

“What?” she asks, “we gonna play go fish?”

He laughs. “If you want to,” he says. “Or whatever else. I just figured you could use some more distracting.” She smiles, and, for the first time, doesn’t want the flight to end. 

“You know slapjack?” she asks. It was her and her sister’s favorite road trip game when they were kids. They used to take the ferry over to the mainland and then drive to Virginia to visit her grandparents, and she’d taught it to Mickey to pass the long hours in the car. 

“Oh, you think you can beat me at slapjack?” he asks, a challenge in his voice. “We’ll fuckin’ see about that.” 

They play on JJ’s tray table until the woman in the seat in front of him turns around and glares at them. As a solution, he lifts the arm rest between them and turns himself in his seat, scooting back as far as he can so there’s open space between them. She scoots back against the wall of the plane and they play with a sliding deck  on the itchy upholstery, laughing too loud for the enclosed space, but Kiara doesn’t really care. He’s good at the game, unfortunately, quick and reactive, blue eyes flashing with mischief and constantly doing his best to try and throw her off. Should two adults be trash-talking during a child’s card game? Probably not, but what else are they going to do?

Eventually, the cabin lights snap off, and reading lights dot the dark landscape as people start to settle in to try and sleep before the plane lands in Raleigh. They put their game away, after that, not wanting to be a disturbance. Well, Kiara doesn’t want to be a disturbance, She’s fairly certain JJ doesn’t much care, but she’d rather avoid the lecture. As he tucks the deck of cards back into his backpack, she yawns, and he catches it out of the corner of his eye. 

“When was the last time you slept?” he asks, and she raises her eyebrows at him. “You said you were coming from Thailand,” he explains, “You must have been traveling for a while.” She smiles, exhausted. She’s been running on adrenaline and spite for the last day and a half, and his kindness and gentle warmth has gotten her to relax just enough that she suddenly feels the entire weight of the journey bearing down on her. She tries to think back to the Bangkok airport, which feels like a century ago. 

“Jesus,” she answers. “I don’t actually know.” First, there was the two-hour bus ride from the sanctuary to the city, then a flight to Seoul, and then Seoul to Seattle, and now Seattle to Raleigh. There’s also the international date line somewhere in there, making the hours she’s spent since she last saw a bed hard to decipher. 

“You should sleep,” he says, nodding sagely. 

She shrugs. “I’ve never really slept well on airplanes,” she says. “I’ve always been too nervous.” 

He looks at her, facing forward in his seat now, her still sideways against the wall. “Are you nervous now?” he asks. His eyes are dark in the low light, almost navy, and for a stranger, he feels deeply familiar, like an old friend, one who sees her, understands every word she says without much in the way of explanation. She’s not great with new friends, never has been. She met Sarah her first year of high school and clung to her in an almost embarrassing manner, just calling whoever else Sarah hung out with her friends so she wouldn’t have to make her own. Even on her travels, she usually got adopted by extroverts at bars, introduced around until people got to know her for herself. This might be the first time she’s made a friend on her own since she was about fourteen. 

In the dark plane, with the engines roaring and the buzz of the air-con, the sleepy chatter of their fellow passengers and the stale, dry air making her nose run, she usually feels stifled, trapped, transient and inconsequential in a way she hates. Just... waiting, until she can see more of the world. But here, with him, it feels like they’re in some sort of bubble, insulated from the eyes and judgment of the rest of the world. She realizes she hasn’t been counting the minutes, has no idea how long they’ve been sitting with each other, no idea how much longer it is until they touch the ground. 

He has freed her from the constant rotation of tasks and time in her head, allowed her to step out and enjoy the moment, something she chases across continents. That’s what she wants, really, a respite from the constant overanalyzing and planning she can’t help but run on the backburner. It comes more often when she’s travelling, of course, which is why she spends as much time as she can  _ doing _ , seeing old temples and hiking up mountains, chasing that one, breathless moment where she can feel every muscle, every bone, where the world wraps its arms around her and tells her she’s safe. And somehow, this stranger, on this flight back to everything she’s been avoiding for the past two years, has given it to her. 

“No,” she answers. “I guess I’m not.” 

His smile cuts to the center of her. “Good,” he answers, “Then I think it might be time to rest.” They turn off their respective reading lights and she takes the sweatshirt she’d tied around her waist and pulls it on, settling down into her seat with her arms crossed over her stomach. JJ doesn’t settle down to sleep, just pulls out his headphones and a small tablet from his bag. 

“What are you going to watch?” she asks, and he looks surprised. 

“I thought you were going to sleep,” he says. 

“I always do better with something playing,” she says. 

He twirls the headphone in his fingers thoughtfully, and then offers it to her, settling the other in his own ear. “The Mummy,” he says. 

“Which version?” she asks, hoping he doesn’t mean the awful Tom Cruise remake that completely besmirched the good name of the campy, hilarious original. 

“1999,” he answers, “Is there anything else?” 

She chuckles. “That’s exactly the correct answer.” 

He starts it up, and the familiar, wavering music sets her soul at ease. This ridiculous cult classic is one of her favorites, and somehow, it makes sense that he loves it, too. She has to lean slightly into his space to be able to see the screen, and within ten minutes her eyelids are falling shut. She feels her body falling towards him unconsciously, like he has some sort of gravitational pull. She’d like to say she collapses onto his shoulder when she’s completely asleep, but she feels him shift to accommodate her weight, his head resting gently on hers. 

When she wakes up, the movie is halfway over, the loud sounds of one of the action scenes jolting her awake. The plane is almost completely dark, now, flying, silent and liminal through the night. His hands are busy in his lap, fiddling with what looks like part of a bike chain. There’s no purpose to it, just folding it through his fingers as the movie plays. He hasn’t noticed that she’s awake, doesn’t say anything or acknowledge that she’s leaning fully on his shoulder now. Watching his hands, her own fingers itch to intertwine with his. The flight, short compared to the one across the pacific, feels never-ending in the best way, and this tenuous connection between them is thrilling and youthful and impossible, and she wants to live in it while she can, before she gets home and her mother starts lecturing her about ‘a nice man’ and full-time jobs and the apartment listings she’s been saving. 

As the main characters chase each other through an ancient Egyptian temple, Kiara reaches out, puts one of her hands over his, a question, and they still where they’d been fidgeting with the makeshift toy. He freezes, and, for an instant, she’s worried that she’s gone too far. But then, he transfers the bit of chain to his other hand and puts his forearm over hers, twisting their fingers together. She smiles, only slightly, and sinks into his touch, grounding and warm and real. Her other hand comes up to wrap around his arm, and she closes her eyes, falling back asleep surrounded by the scent of him, pine and salt breeze. 

When she wakes again, the movie is over, JJ’s tablet dark, and his breathing is deep and even, her hand still held loosely in his. She doesn’t dare move, just enjoys the warmth of him, the way he feels like comfort, like home. She doesn’t know how he’s tunneled so deeply into her heart in such a short time, doesn’t want to think about it, because then she’ll get scared and pull away and ruin it, like she ruins every good thing that shows up in her life. Instead, she looks at their entwined hands, memorizing the way his skin feels against hers. There are rough calluses on his palms, catching against her own, smooth skin, and she wonders how someone so young could have already worked so hard. She smooths her thumb over the first knuckle of his index finger, content in the moment, to have this of him, this moment to remember him by. 

She drifts in and out, after that, dozing and daydreaming while JJ sleeps. She gets the feeling he doesn’t do vulnerability well, feels privileged to get to see him like this, golden and peaceful in the low light. He avoided all the questions she asked about his family, only mentioned one consistent friend. She’s been let in, somehow, and that tells her that maybe this improbable meeting might be something cosmic. 

Eventually, the cabin lights snap back on, and they sit up, exchanging awkward, shy smiles as the captain announces the local time and temperature in Raleigh. Kiara gathers her phone, charger, and snacks, stowing them back into her day bag. JJ stretches, and it’s distracting, the way his shirt rides up to reveal smooth, tanned skin and the hint of well-developed muscle. His shoulders were broad and firm, and he clearly has the abs to match. The silence is somewhat awkward, in the harsh fluorescent light, the moment broken as they have no idea how to act around each other. 

“So listen --” he says, at the same time she says “Okay, so --” They both laugh, and JJ raises his eyebrows, asking for permission, which she grants with a nod. 

“So listen,” he starts again, and then pauses, like he’s suddenly nervous. “I’d um, I mean, only if you want to, of course, but I -- fuck,” he sighs, and she laughs, fairly certain she knows where this is going. “I’d really like to see you again.” She bites her bottom lip, in the way that has scraped it raw over years of the same repeated habit. Her mother hates it, tried to train her out of it as a teen -- unsuccessfully, of course. 

“Yeah,” she says, “Yeah, I’d really like that.” His answering smile is brilliant, like the afternoon sun that lit up his hair when she first saw him down the aisle of this stupid plane. He schools it off of his face quickly, like he’s embarrassed by his own enthusiasm. 

“Great!” he says, and then, calmer, “I mean, dope. Cool, that’s --” the smile returns at half-watts, tugging up one side of his face as he scratches at the back of his head. “That’s awesome.” They just look at each other for a second, smiling like idiots, and when the plane starts to turn, Kiara’s stomach drops, realizing that they’re coming in for landing -- her least favorite, about even with takeoff. 

Slowly, she presses her back against her seat, squeezing her eyes closed. “Remind me to give you my phone number when this is over,” she says. 

Without a second thought, he reaches out and twists his fingers through hers. “I’d be happy too,” he says, and when she opens one eye, he’s smiling at her. 

Of course, the plane lands without incident, but she keeps a white-knuckled grip on JJ’s hand anyway, teeth clenched and breathing as controlled as she can manage. She’d read once that most plane crashes happen directly after or during takeoff and landing, and she’s never forgotten that statistic. Finally, both sets of wheels hit the tarmac, and the plane slows to a crawl, the flight attendants reminding the passengers not to use their cellphones until they come to a stop at the gate. Every person on board almost immediately breaks that rule, Kiara and JJ included.

She barks out a laugh as he pulls a flip-phone out of his pocket and flicks it open. “Are you joking?” she asks. 

He rolls his eyes, clearly used to being hassled for this particular quirk. “First of all,” he says, and Kiara nods, her eyebrows raised, holding down more laughter. “Smart phones do not do well on deep-sea fishing boats.” (Which like, he’s got a point.) “Secondly, I fucking hate texting and this gives me an excuse not to do it.” 

She hands him her Galaxy s9 and he scowls comedically at the smooth glass screen, even as he types in his number. “How should I expect to be contacted, then?” she asks, as she shoots him a text that’s made up entirely of emojis she knows he cannot see. 

He holds up his technological fossil as the text comes through as a bunch of empty boxes. “You’re hilarious,” he says, deadpan. 

She lifts her chin in smug satisfaction. “I like to think so.” 

“And besides,” he says, clumsily typing in her name with his 9-digit keyboard. “I’m old-fashioned.” 

“So, what,” she asks, as the plane bumps to a halt and people rise in the aisles. “You’re going to call me?” 

“Like a true gentleman,” he says, and then laughs at himself. 

“Who says I’ll pick up?” she asks, looking at him as he stands and lifts his arms to open the overhead bin, his stupid shirt riding up over his stupid abs again. 

“Something tells me you will,” he says on a fox-like grin, dropping a wink for good measure. She rolls her eyes, dropping her gaze as her phone buzzes to life in her hand, grateful for a distraction and an excuse for him not to see the blush pushing its way onto her face. 

**_Sbarro:_ ** what time are you landing cause I think the best friend is on ur flight 

Apparently his name is ACTUALLY Jesse James

What REAL PERSON is named Jesse James????????

Oh fuck you’ve taken off by now haven’t u

Okay well text me when u land bc at this point u may get back to me before the stupid 

‘Best friend’ gets ahold of my stupid boyfriend 

Okay stupid boyfriend saw the last text and would like me to remind you that I do in fact 

love him very much even tho we all know you know this

Have u landed yet 

kiaraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

**_Kiwi:_ ** jesus have u no chill 

**_Sbarro:_ ** none whatsoever 

I am taking this as a sign u did not die in a fiery explosion

**_Kiwi:_ ** i am sorry u r actually talking to Kiara Carrera’s ghost and she would like to inform u that u 

r an asshole

**_Sbarro:_ ** TAKE IT BACK SAY U LOVE ME 

**_Kiwi:_ ** i love u u fucking psychopath

Also there was a Boy on the plane 

**_Sbarro:_ ** A BOY??????????

TELL ME EVERYTHING TELL ME NOW

HOW DID U PICK SOMEONE UP ON A FUCKING FLIGHT U MINX

**_Kiwi:_ ** details later we’re deplaning 

**_Sbarro:_ ** you are not just leaving me hanging like this

Kiara

KIARA

wheezus christ, fine, be that way 

JJ was quiet as she texted Sarah, and he stands back to let her out first as the line ahead of them moves quickly. She can feel his eyes on her back as they disembark, and after she quietly thanks the flight attendants, he jogs up to walk beside her as they climb the jetway. His bag is an ancient military-issue duffle, one of the old green canvas ones, with fraying straps and the name  _ MAYBANK _ stitched across the side, pilling and old. It doesn’t look recent enough to be his -- maybe his dad’s, or an older brother he still hasn’t mentioned. 

“So where are you headed?” he asks. “You live in town?” She laughs, remembering the four-hour drive ahead of her and the endless questions she will no doubt have to endure from both her parents, and, if they talked her into coming, Mickey, too. 

“Not even close,” she says. “It’s a tiny island, I promise you probably haven’t even heard of it.” 

A strange look goes across his face. “Try me,” he says, as they step into the airport proper. The place is practically deserted. They took off from Seattle around 5, and then, after a six hour flight and the time difference, it’s essentially 2 AM in North Carolina. Any workers left in the airport look empty and drained, and the gate agents gossip with each other as they watch the rest of the passengers deplane. She doesn’t have a chance, though, because, at that moment, her phone rings. It’s her mother. Shooting an apologetic look to JJ, she picks up, expecting him to say goodnight and walk away. He doesn’t. 

_ “Sweetheart!” _ Her mother’s voice is entirely too cheerful for this late -- early -- whatever it is, at this point. Kiara just knows she’s exhausted. “ _ I was tracking your flight _ ,” she says, because of course she was, “ _ How long ago did you land?” _

“Just now, Mom,” Kiara says, and the word feels strange in her mouth, after going so long without saying it. “The app must have been really accurate.” 

“ _ Oh, great!”  _ her mother chirps, and she must have slept before dragging the rest of her family into the car, or is running on a criminal amount of caffeine. “ _ Oh, that’s excellent. We’re close to the airport, only fifteen minutes away! Do you have anything in baggage claim?”  _ Kiara looks up at JJ, who’s on the phone too, smiling in a way that tells her he probably actually likes the person on the other end. Kiara loves her mother, she just doesn’t always like her. Especially not now, at two in the morning, as a rude interruption to what was probably the best flight of her life. 

“Yeah,” Kiara answers, distracted by JJ’s laugh and the way his hands move as he talks, the way he keeps shaking his head and laughing, like he’s just grateful to hear the voice of whoever he’s talking to. A surge of envy rises in her chest, whether for him or the other side of his conversation, she doesn’t know. “Yeah, I gate-checked my backpack, so I have to pick it up.” 

“ _ Oh, smart, _ ” her mother says, “ _ I never understood paying to check baggage when they always do it for you! That was a good choice, honey. _ ” Kiara hums in the affirmative, used to the way Anna blathers on about things that are, in the long-run, essentially inane. “ _ Well I think we’ve timed it just right, _ ” her mother continues, “ _ and I hate those parking garages, so why don’t you just meet us in the pickup lane? _ ” Kiara is still watching JJ, who finishes his conversation, flipping his phone closed and looking up at her, his smile stalling the breath in her chest. “ _ Sweetie? _ ”

“Oh yeah, sorry,” Kiara says, finally dragging her eyes away and redirecting her attention back to the conversation with her mother. “Yeah, okay, Mom. Sounds good.” JJ is dithering on purpose now, fiddling with his bag, and she’s wondering why he doesn’t just walk away. 

_ “Are you alright, honey?”  _ her mom asks. 

“Yeah,” Kiara reassures her. “Yeah, just tired. I’ll see you soon, okay?” she ends the call before her mother has a chance to say anything else. She walks back over to JJ. 

“All good?” he asks. 

“Just my mom,” she says, “She was tracking the flight, apparently.” 

He laughs. “Smart,” he says. “I forgot to give my buddy the flight number, so he hazarded a guess -- him and his girlfriend won’t be here for another hour.” 

She pulls a face. “Sucks,” she offers, and he shrugs. 

“Might find some place to crash, I think.” His hands are in his pockets, and he kicks at the ground, another awkward silence settling over them. She doesn’t want to be the first one to walk away first. 

“I think they have couches by the baggage claim,” she says, “For people to wait. Could be a good spot.” 

He smiles then, tired but still bright. “I’ll walk you.” 

She wants to take his hand as they walk, but it feels strange to reach out in the harsh light, like she was only brave under the spell of the darkness. The airport slips by, silent and sleeping, and they don’t say much, both exhausted and unsure. They come to a small seating area with a few squashy-looking couches, the escalators to baggage claim on the left, and JJ pauses, like this is where he’s going to set up camp until his friend comes to get him. She stops, too, and they both look at the floor, unsure of how to proceed. 

“Thanks,” she says, and he looks up from his feet, surprised. 

“For what?” he asks. 

She shrugs. “For everything,” she settles on. “I usually hate flying, but, um,” and here, she bites down on her own smile. “I had a really good time.” 

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Yeah, I did too.” 

In an instant, she realizes that she wants to kiss him. She’d met him only six hours ago, but she knows the feeling of his hand in hers, the way his smile sets off fireworks in her chest, how he looks when he’s sleeping, what he smells like when she’s tucked into his side. She wants to step forward, throw her arms around his neck and lean in, press her lips against his and stay a while, learn what he tastes like and what he might feel like under her mouth. But he’s standing too far away now, looking down again, and it feels impossible. Maybe he won’t even call. 

“So,” she says. 

“So,” he says, too.

“I’ll see you around?” she offers, and it’s weak, and lame, but she doesn’t know what else to say. 

His eyes look almost sad when he looks up, but that damn smile is tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll call you.” She nods, and turns away, embarrassed. She barely gets a few feet when her phone is buzzing in her pocket again, and when she pulls it out, it’s his name across the screen. She turns, and his phone is against his ear, a shit-eating grin across his face. 

“You’re an idiot,” she says, and locks her phone, rejecting the call, but he doesn’t care, because he’s hanging up his and opening his arms, welcoming her. 

He picks her up as she crashes against him, twirling her around once before setting her down again. She settles back on her feet with a laugh, tucking the sound into his shoulder, his arms strong and firm around her waist, and it’s just as comforting and lovely to be pressed up against him as she imagined. She pulls back to look in his eyes, and there’s barely a breath before he’s kissing her, long and deep and sincere, and she leans into it fully, one foot popping up like a damn fairy tale. 

He tastes a little stale, and she’s sure she does too, but she doesn’t mind, grinning into the kiss, their lips moving together like they were meant to fit this way. He’s strong and sure in his movement, but holding back, the slightest bit, like maybe he wishes they were somewhere a little less public. His tongue swipes against her lower lip, and she wishes they were, too. When they finally pull away, she’s breathless and smiling, both of them keeping their eyes closed, foreheads leaned together, unwilling to break the moment. The only interruption is her phone, buzzing in her sweatshirt pocket between them, making his stomach vibrate and both of them laugh. 

“My mom,” she says, still not moving. “She’s waiting.” 

“Let her wait,” he says, and kisses her again. 

There wasn’t a single part of her that thought that something like this could ever happen to her, that she would ever be  _ that  _ girl, the one who meets the perfect man in a completely random, improbable happenstance. It’s too romance movie, too cliche and impossible, but here he is, brand new and somehow feeling like home as he kisses her, his broad hands framing her waist and setting a fire in her blood. Her phone stops ringing and then starts again, and she pulls away even as he chases her lips. 

“I have to go,” she laughs, and he groans into her neck, leaving kisses there that make her want to drag him into the nearest bathroom and rip off his clothes. She doesn’t want to let him go, either, but her phone is ringing, and it’s late, and as much as she wants this man, his lips and his tongue and his arms around her, she also really wants to fucking sleep. 

“Do you?” he asks, and then his mouth is over hers again, and she’s not sure she does. But then her phone begins to ring for a third time, and she pulls away one last time. 

“I’ll see you,” she says, and extricates herself from his arms, pointing at him as she walks backwards towards the escalators. “You’ll call me.” 

“I'll call you,” he says, and his tone makes it sound like a promise. 

She practically floats down the escalator, finally answers her mother’s fourth call as she heaves her backpack off the carousel.  Her tone is , of course, impatient, because Anna Carrera hardly has any other state of being, but for once, Kiara doesn’t mind, too swept up in the memory of JJ’s kiss to let it bother her. As soon as she’s out of the doors, her family piles out of the car, surrounding her with tired smiles and a forcible group hug that nearly knocks her over. Mickey hangs off her neck, her mother trying to hold both her daughters at once, and Mike Carrera comes behind her, wrapping his family in a strong embrace. Kiara can’t help it -- she starts to cry. There’s tearful laughter and too many voices at once, and Mickey refuses to let go of her, even as they pile into the car. She’s not usually the most affectionate of sisters, but she falls asleep on Kiara’s shoulder on the long drive back to the island. 

When they finally pull up to the excessively large house on Kildare, dawn is breaking, grey light washing over the pillars and the wraparound porch that Kiara always thought was an excessive display of wealth, but was still her favorite part of the house. 

Her father claps his hand on her shoulder, giving her a warm smile and a muttered “good to have you home, sweetheart,” before going inside, and her sister slumps toward the house with almost zero awareness of the world around her, in true teenage fashion. Kiara stands in the driveway, staring up at the old-fashioned newly-built colonial they’d moved into just before her freshman year of high school. Mickey was only ten, making the jump between elementary and middle school, a transition that is, arguably, easier, than the transition between middle school and high school. She was excited, for a new room, new school, new friends. Kiara remembers the dread that had filled her stomach when she first stood in front of this house. 

It’s not dissimilar to the feeling filling her now. Not dread, exactly, but a sinking kind of disappointment. There’s relief, to be sure, but it’s small compared to the old, tired feeling of returning to social norms and rules she’d spent so long running from. Her mother hugs her arm as they stand in front of the house, too excited for the early (late?) hour. 

“Doesn’t it feel good to be home, sweetheart?” Anna asks, with a cheerful smile. 

Kiara returns it as best she can, which isn’t well. “Yeah,” she says, “sure does.” She barely makes it through a shower before stumbling into her bed, the softness of which she has not seen in many, many months. The pillow-top queen mattress swallows her whole, and she’s surprised she even makes it under the covers before she falls asleep. 

She sleeps well into the next morning, only waking up because the smell of breakfast wafts up from downstairs. Her bed is right next to the heating vent in her room, and she rolls over and hangs her head over it, drinking in the smell of her father’s cooking. She hasn’t had a decent American breakfast in she doesn’t know how long, and the thought of hashbrowns makes her mouth water. She can hear her parents voices, muted through the floor, calm and familiar. It really is like waking up in another world, and it’s hard to wrap her head around the fact that the last bed she woke up in was in a grass shack, with a herd of elephants less than a hundred yards away.

She reaches out for her phone, plugged in on her nightstand, and there’s a missed call from JJ, and a voicemail. Which, she thinks, is mildly archaic and definitely on brand. She listens to it before she opens any other messages, lifting her phone to her ear. 

“ _ Hey Kiara,”  _ he says, and his voice is gritty and exhausted and the hottest thing she’s ever heard in her life. “ _ Clearly I didn’t think this through because you’re definitely asleep already but I just -- ah fuck.”  _ she smiles, at that, seeing his grin in her mind.  _ “I just wanted to tell you I made it back to my buddy’s place and everything, I guess. Fuck, that’s lame. Anyway, you never actually told me where you live, so you should do that. Not because I wanna know exactly where you live, just so that we could go out some time. If you still want to. Which I hope you do. Fuck. Anyway. Call me back. It’s JJ, by the way. Which you also already know fucking -- godamnit --”  _ and then, whispered,  _ “so fucking stupid, okay.” _ and the voicemail ends. 

She listens to it at least three more times. She debates calling him back right away, decides not to because it’s still before noon and he’s probably still asleep. She would be too, except at that moment, Mickey busts through her door and lands in a spectacular heap on her bed. 

“GOOD MORNING,” she says, looking at Kiara with a smile that’s like looking in a mirror. “Didja miss me?” 

Kiara reaches down and ruffles her little sister’s hair, falling out of a ponytail, messy from sleep. “Yeah I did, kiddo.” 

Mickey reaches out and hooks her finger under a bracelet on Kiara’s arm, made from woven twine and colorful beads. “Where’s this one from?” she asks. This is a game they play, as Kiara unpacks, pulling things out while Mickey demands stories for each and every item, even the clothes she’s had for years. Mickey is resolute, making her talk about an old navy shopping trip like it’s the same as a bazaar in Morocco, or a market in Guangzhou. 

“Funny story about that one, actually,” Kiara says, getting out of bed and crossing to where she’d dumped her backpack by the door. She kept all the little trinkets in a side pocket, so they wouldn’t get lost in her tangle of clothes or fall to the bottom and get broken or damaged. She pulls out a similar bracelet, with a different pattern and colors. “I got you one, too.” 

Mickey lights up and immediately sits up, holding her wrist out for Kiara to tie it on. “Thank you!” she says, admiring it. “It’s so pretty!” Kiara takes in the sight of her little sister, sitting on her messy bed in the morning light, running her fingers over the beads in the bracelet, red, purple, and black, her favorite colors. She can’t help but smile. 

“I made it at the sanctuary,” Kiara says, and Mickey’s eyes shine in a mischievous way when she looks up. 

“Some things never change, I guess,” she says, and Kiara’s eyebrows draw together. Mickey laughs and rolls her eyes, dropping back on her hands. “You’ve always been making me bracelets, Kiki,” she says. The nickname is leftover from when Mickey was a toddler and couldn’t say Kiara’s full name properly. “now they’re just fancy and Thai.”

Kiara turns away and starts unpacking her backpack, crinkling her nose at the smell of stale sweat and Thai jungle that wafts up from the crumpled clothes therein. “Yeah,” she says, Mickey’s words settling just under her skin. She tried so hard to run as far as she could from the OBX, but there are some habits, some traditions, that never break. “I guess you’re right.” 

Their parents call the sisters down a little while later, and all three of her family members beg for anecdotes and details about all the things Kiara’s done, the people she’s met and the things she’s seen. There’s a small satisfaction in the homecoming of the weary traveler, reluctant though it may be, able to hold the rapt attention of her audience, set wonder ablaze in their eyes and put smiles on their faces. Kiara travels to experience, to be sure, chasing that moment of peace, of serenity, of knowing that she is doing the most she can with what she has been given, but this is a little bit of the reason, too. She’s not usually one to enjoy being the center of attention, but with her family, laughing and trading jokes over breakfast, she enjoys their reunion, for just a moment. 

The enjoyment comes to a screeching halt when Anna mentions Christmas shopping as they clean up, talking about a new home goods store in the small downtown area of the island. Kiara rolls her eyes as she scrubs the egg pan. All the home goods stores in downtown Kildare are the same -- filled with bullshit seashell-and-hot-glue knickknacks meant to break in tourist suitcases. There’s nothing in there she would actually like, but Anna will no doubt get her something anyway, to ‘remind her of home.’ She’ll have to hide it somewhere in her room, to convince her mother that she’s packed it, when she leaves. 

Mickey mimes gagging behind Anna’s back as she loads the dishwasher, and Kiara snorts out a laugh. “What?” Anna demands, even while Mike snickers. 

“Nothing, Mama,” Mickey says, coming up and giving her mother a kiss on the cheek. “Sounds fun!” Kiara’s eyes flicker up to her dad, and Mike winks from behind his newspaper. 

**_Kiwi:_ ** hey sorry I didn’t text when I got home last night I fucking crashed. How’s the best friend?

**_Sbarro:_ ** a total surf-bro just like JB but actually pretty fun 

If I don’t supervise them closely I think they will do illegal things, though.

They started talking about fireworks for New Year’s on the drive back and I’m mildly 

concerned for their limbs 

**_Kiwi:_ ** hey, go big or go home, right?   
  


**_Sbarro:_ ** please do not encourage them 

Also they’re doing weird bro-bonding today and going fishing later even though its like 

negative 6000 u wanna hang out 

**_Kiwi:_ ** first of all, it’s like 45 degrees, calm down

Secondly, can’t, mandatory Carrera-girl bonding time 

**_Sbarro:_ ** ugh I wish 

Weirdly enough, I miss Wheezie 

Step-witch was fucking furious that she wasn’t coming home for christmas 

**_Kiwi:_ ** lol I bet she was 

isn’t Wheezie in Malta? Fuck, I wouldn’t come home either. 

**_Sbarro:_ ** Monaco. Apparently she met some Italian hottie and is going to his family’s place for 

Christmas.

I blame u for this it’s ur fault she even wanted to study abroad in Italy 

U should have snagged urself an Italian hottie 

SPEAKING OF WHICH, MADAM 

You still owe me details on plane boy!!!

**_Kiwi:_ ** later, I promise, Mom is dragging us out of the house rn 

**_Sbarro:_ ** kiara i s2g if u leave me hanging again i will actually hang u by ur ankles 

Kiara

Ugh fuck u 

I love u have fun with ur mom

The home goods store is, as anticipated, disappointingly anticlimactic, and the same as every other kitschy, overpriced place Kiara’s been dragged into all her life, but she helps Mickey find something for their mom, anyway, because Anna loves places like this. 

“What do you think I should get Dad?” Mickey asks as the cashier wraps up the glass seahorse bookend or whatever the fuck it is. 

“This is why I travel, yanno,” Kiara replies, tugging on one of Mickey’s braids. Her sister slaps her hand away. “I just bring cheap crap home and people love it cause it’s from overseas.” 

“Yeah, that’s why,” Mickey says, rolling her eyes and accepting her bag from the clerk. Anna tries not to look excited at the bag in Mickey’s hand when they rejoin her on the sidewalk, and is unsuccessful. 

Later, Anna takes the girls to a fancy lunch, even though Kiara would really rather just eat at the Wreck. She misses her dad’s burgers, and she wants to catch up with the kitchen staff, maybe get behind the stove and remind Mario and Jorge how it’s done. Instead, she’s in the restaurant of a four-star hotel, feeling out of place in her old jeans and oversized sweater, both remnants from high school that she had to dig out of her closet. She’s grateful they still fit. The food is too expensive for how shitty it is, and she suffers a harsh look from her mother when she orders a gin and tonic with her meal. Mickey giggles behind her hand. Halfway through the meal, Kiara gets up to use the restroom, and is caught by a familiar face near the doors to the kitchen. 

“JJ?” she says, baffled. He swivels away from the bar, where’d he been joking with the bartender. Of course, he looks stupidly fantastic, a bandana tied around his forehead, keeping messy blond locks out of his eyes. The drug rug/cargo shorts combo makes slightly less sense, but she figures he’s probably used to much lower temperatures. 

“Kiara, hey!” he says, and she is surprised by the mild panic in his expression. “What are you doing here?” his blue eyes are wide, genuinely alarmed. 

“What are  _ you _ doing here?” she asks, mildly stunned. She remembers they never actually told each other where they were going after the airport. She’d half-mentioned Kildare and then her mother had called. His face when she said ‘tiny island’ reappears in her mind, and she thinks he might have had slightly more of an inkling that they were from the same place. 

“I used to work here,” he answers. “In high school.” 

“No shit?” she asks, and then kicks herself, because what kind of fucking conversationalist are you, Kiara? 

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “no shit.” The sound of his laugh takes the edge off her nerves, just a little bit, as they slide back into the sarcastic, friendly banter, territory that’s simple and easy to navigate. She would be surprised that she doesn’t remember him -- that he didn’t recognize they were from the same hometown. But how many customers did she remember, from the Wreck? How many tables had she waited on with an empty smile and a distracted mind? Maybe, she considers, with an inexplicable sinking feeling, that was the reason for the intimate familiarity she felt on the plane. Maybe the memory of his face gently resurfaced, and it was that latent reminder of home that drew her to him. For some reason, the idea is disappointing.

“I got your voicemail,” she blurts, and there’s that smile again, bright and genuine and real, and she hates that he only lets it light up his face for a moment before it’s gone again, schooled away to avoid the opportunity for vulnerability. “I was gonna call you back, um. Later.” It sounds lame, coming out of her mouth, but his eyes shine, anyway. 

“Yeah,” he says, “no pressure. Whenever works, you know?” 

“Maybe we could get dinner, or something,” she says, and hell, why does she feel like a high schooler, right now? She’s twenty-two years old. She should be done with the stupid fucking butterflies. 

“Not here,” he says, instantly serious, and she laughs. 

“No,” she agrees, shaking her head. “Not here.” 

“What about tomorrow?” he asks, and he has a handle on his smile, but not on the hope shining in his eyes. 

“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” she reminds him. She’d flown in at the last possible minute, hoping to avoid all of the country-club nonsense that usually occurs around the holiday season. If they haven’t changed their event schedule since last year, so far, she’s been successful.

“Right,” he says. “After that, then.” 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “After that.” 

“Yo, J,” the bartender says. “The Kommandant is coming.” Kiara’s eyebrows pull together at the nickname, but, to JJ, it seems normal. “You gotta scram, bro.” 

“The Kommandant?” she asks, unsure if she wants to know. 

“The manager,” JJ explains. “I started calling him that,” he adds, with a certain amount of pride. The bartender rolls his eyes, and JJ turns to him, reaching out to do some impossible-looking handshake. “Tell Mama Kay I said hey and also to stop putting so much salt in everything.” 

“You know she’s not gonna do that, man,” the bartender says, laughing. 

“Worth a shot,” JJ says, and he shrugs, his head jerking to the side with the motion. It’s a strange gesture, but it fits his lanky body, the way he moves, like he never quite got used to having so much limb. 

“God, that’s what that was?” Kiara asks, recoiling at the memory of the taste. 

“Nasty, right?” JJ says, “We try to tell her, but she never listens.” 

“MAYBANK!!” A portly man with a poorly-maintained mustache shouts JJ’s last name from across the lobby, and the bartender snickers as JJ’s mischievous grin bursts into flames.

“Fuck,” JJ exclaims, “gotta run.” He plants a kiss on her cheek and then literally sprints away, headed for the front door. The manager gives chase for exactly half a second before giving up. She stands for a moment, stunned, her hand involuntarily coming up to cover the spot his lips had just touched.  She doesn’t move until she hears the bartender snicker. 

When she gets back to the table, her mother (who could not see her from her seat) asks her if she’s alright, and Mickey (who could) has a devilish expression on her face. “Who was  _ that _ ?” Mickey hisses when Kiara resumes her seat. She steps on her sister’s toes rather hard. 

Anna whips around in her seat. “Who was what?” she asks. 

“No one, Mom,” Kiara blurts. “Just a friend from high school.” She’s never been a good liar, but, luckily, Anna has never been the most perceptive when it comes to her daughters’ attempts to deceive her, so they usually got away with. This time, however, they are decidedly obvious. Mickey holds back laughter and Kiara pinches her under the table. Mickey kicks back. 

“A friend from high school?” Anna asks, raising her eyebrows, knowing damn well that Sarah was Kiara’s only real friend, well. Ever.

“A very  _ hot _ friend from high school,” Mickey snickers, and, in that moment, Kiara would sell her sister to Satan for exactly one corn chip. 

“Oh?” Anna asks, and Mickey props her chin in her hand, faking rapt attention as she waits for Kiara to explain. 

“It’s just --” She says, fighting the heat that creeps up the back of her neck. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Mom,” She takes a very large swig of her drink. 

“You didn’t have very many handsome friends in high school,” Anna points out, and Kiara wishes she was literally anywhere but in this hotel restaurant at this very moment. This -- the public humiliation and her mother and sister teaming up on her -- she has not missed.

“Well clearly I had at least one,” she says, the tension starting to become evident in her voice. 

“Handsome enough that you might consider staying this time?” Anna says, her eyes on her plate, her voice considerably pointed. She’s always doing this, making thinly-veiled side comments about Kiara travelling all the time. She worries, and Kiara knows that, but she could do without the passive aggression. 

“Mom --” Kiara starts, and Anna sighs, waving a hand to cut her off. 

“I know, I know,” she says. “You’re young, and you want to see the world. But you’re going to have to settle down at some point.” 

“Yeah,” Mickey adds, “get a real job, and everything.” 

Kiara, who has her face settled on the palm of her hand, turns to her sister and very quietly whispers “I will  _ kill _ you.”

“Kiara honey, don’t threaten your sister,” Anna admonishes, almost as a second thought. “Mikayla is right.” Mickey nods, eyes big and exaggerated. “You have a degree, sweetheart, you should use it.” They’ve had this argument a hundred times, and Kiara’s head feels mildly like it’s caving in, a collision of too many worlds at once. “I just don’t understand --” 

“Can we not do this now?” Kiara sighs, and her sister is snickering again, and Kiara might be planning a murder. “I’ve been home less than twenty-four hours.” 

“Alright, Alright,” Anna sighs, but in a way that suggests she’s giving in reluctantly and will, in fact, be sure to pick up this argument later. “I just want you to be thinking about your future, Kiara.”

“I know, Mom.” Kiara says, and Mickey’s smile is one of the most infuriating things she’s ever seen.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Sbarro:_ ** Kiara I am about to commit scooter ankle

**_Kiwi:_ ** you too, huh?

**_Sbarro:_ ** wait what happened to you 

**_Kiwi:_ ** just Anna being Anna. Nothing enormous just -- if she would just fucking lay off I might 

come home more often

I can’t wait to see you the day after Christmas honestly I need to get tf out of here 

**_Sbarro:_ ** … about that 

**_Kiwi:_ ** Sarah I will legitimately murder you 

**_Sbarro:_ ** LISTEN THIS ONE IS NOT MY FAULT OKAY 

Step-witch has decided we all need to be together for Christmas 

So she has called in a favor and apparently we are going to meet Wheezie in Monaco 

Apparently it is going to be a surprise

Rose is convinced Wheezie will be thrilled 

I for one am looking forward to her being wrong 

**_Kiwi:_ ** so you’re leaving me 

**_Sbarro:_ ** only temporarily 

**_Kiwi:_ ** how temporary is temporarily 

**_Sbarro:_ ** I will be back for New Year’s Eve 

**_Kiwi:_ ** sarAHHHHHHH

**_Sbarro:_ ** I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW 

**_Kiwi:_ ** THAT IS LIKE A WHOLE WEEK 

**_Sbarro:_ ** I WOULD LIKE TO REMIND YOU THAT I AM NOT PLEASED ABOUT THIS EITHER 

SHE IS FLYING IN RAFE

I WILL ALSO NOT BE HAVING A GOOD TIME 

**_Kiwi:_ ** isn’t he a literal cokehead 

**_Sbarro:_ ** we are apparently ignoring this in the Spirit Of The Season 

**_Kiwi:_ ** step-witch is deranged 

**_Sbarro:_ ** babe, you know this and I know this 

Sincerely tho I am deeply sorry I will be leaving you but like at least you have Mickey???

**_Kiwi:_ ** mickey is on thin fucking ice 

**_Sbarro:_ ** oh?

**_Kiwi:_ ** typical 18 yr old shit

I love her and everything but like she should know I am not above homicide 

**_Sbarro:_ ** siblings really do be like that tbh

Also like… you could hang out with the bf. If u wanted to

**_Kiwi:_ ** Sarah I’ve met him like once 

**_Sbarro:_ ** I would feel bad if I didn’t offer 

Also I’m mildly concerned about leaving him alone with the best friend for too long 

They are slightly unhinged

Boys will be boys in the most wholesome and concerning of ways

**_Kiwi:_ ** the best friend sounds fun tbh

**_Sbarro:_ ** u r such a fucking bruh girl sometimes I think u would actually fit in terrifyingly well 

Also like, objectively, he’s pretty fucking hot 

**_Kiwi:_ ** SARAH

**_Sbarro:_ ** I SAID OBJECTIVELY 

But I guess you have Plane Boy 

Who you have sTILL TOLD ME NOTHING ABOUT YA BITCH 

**_Kiwi:_ ** I actually ran into him today, weirdly enough

apparently it is movie time I am being told to get off my phone 

**_Sbarro:_ ** OKAY NO 

THIS IS INTENTIONAL NOW 

**_Kiwi:_ ** you’re leaving me for a week this is your punishment 

**_Sbarro:_ ** I would like to ONCE AGAIN REMIND YOU that it is nOT BY CHOICE 

**_Kiwi:_ ** I will tell you once u get back tho I promise 

Okay I really do have to go tho mom is glaring at me 

Pls text me when u land, etc. 

**_Sbarro:_ ** i hate u so much 

But also fine i will

The Carreras gather around the old TV in the basement, the one that’s about a foot and a half wide with a rounded screen and a VHS player in the bottom, to watch  _ Eloise at Christmastime _ , a family tradition on the day before Christmas Eve. Mickey mildly redeems herself by making Kiara a drink and then taking the majority of the flak from Anna by making herself one, too.  She even makes Kiara a second one, even though Anna tuts under her breath. After the movie, Anna and Mike head to bed, and Kiara is surprised when her sister gives her a hug before they part ways in the upstairs hallway. 

“I missed you, Kiki,” Mickey says softly, and Kiara tightens her arms around her sister’s waist. 

“I missed you too, kiddo,” she whispers back. 

She gets ready for bed and tries to ignore that the only thing left on her mind is JJ, his blond mop and stupid smile and those ridiculous blue eyes. Running into him on Kildare was a significant if welcome surprise. It’s a small island, and she knows most , if not all, of the people her age, or at least has heard their names. The name JJ Maybank rings a bell, but she can’t remember why. She did her best not to listen to gossip in high school, as most of it was not only hurtful but also deeply false, but the longer she thinks, hazy memories of wild, larger-than-life stories involving that name start to surface. Stories about fights and guns and petty crimes. None of it lines up with the charming, easy going guy she’s been talking to, and she brushes it all off with the assurance that she’s either misremembering or he’s grown a lot, since then. 

Climbing into her bed, her thumb hovers over the phone icon next to his contact. She did tell herself earlier that she would call him back, but then she ran into him at the hotel. Is it weird, to still call, when they’ve talked in person? She wants to ask Sarah, but the small, petty part of her wants to starve her best friend of details for leaving her behind with just her family for an entire week. It’s more than that, though, too. She feels connected to JJ, as stupid and stereotypical and cheesy as it sounds. She’s no stranger to attraction or infatuation, but this feels different, big and expanding in a terrifying way. The scariest part is that she has no idea if he feels the same way, and she’s avoiding what might happen to her heart, if he doesn’t. 

Before she can chicken out, she hits ‘call’ and then bites her lip as it rings. 

“ _ Hello?” _ His voice is gritty and relaxed, and the sound of it sets the butterflies in her stomach tumbling over each other. 

“Hey,” she says, and hears him take a steep inhale. 

“ _ Kiara? _ ” he asks, and her name in his mouth does something indescribable to the inside of her ribs. 

“What, your rotary dial doesn’t get caller ID?” she jokes, and he laughs, sleepy and unguarded, a boyish, quiet sound. 

“ _ I uh -- I didn’t check it.” _ he admits, and she wishes she knew him better, wishes she could rib him about lying to cover up the fact that he has a literal dinosaur phone. But she’s still learning the inflections in his voice, can’t quite picture the expression on his face based on his tone. She realizes she wants to know him, the real way, the kind of way that goes beyond words.  _ “Sorry, I’m -- I’m a little drunk.”  _

“Me too,” she says, the liquor singing in her veins, right next to adrenaline and giddy anticipation and a thousand other things. 

“ _ Oh really?”  _ he asks, and  _ that’s _ not fair, because she can hear his smile, knows what it means that she called him while tipsy, knows that he knows it, too. She didn’t do it on purpose, didn’t think about the implications 

“Only a little,” she says. “I had two drinks while watching a movie with my family.” 

“ _ Two drinks? _ ” he says, and his grin is there, just behind the words. “ _ Didn’t take you for a lightweight.” _

“I am  _ not  _ a lightweight,” she insists, and he laughs, a low chuckle that puts an ancient kind of heat in her belly. 

“ _ Alright, alright,” _ he says, “ _ but I am going to have to test that claim _ .” 

“Yeah?” she says, and she’s grateful he can’t see the stupid smile on her face, the dopey expression that comes from just hearing his voice. Every inch of her skin feels electric, 

“ _ Yeah,”  _ he says, certain, confidence clear and strong and standing in his tone. She shouldn’t be turned on by this. They’re having a normal conversation. He hasn’t said anything suggestive, hasn’t alluded to what he might do if he were beside her in her bed, rather than on the other end of the phone. But she can feel the alcohol in her system and his voice is stupidly hot and she’s remembering his hands, the way they folded over each other, the way his fingers felt between hers. 

“What,” she says, after half a beat, having to remember that she has to say something in return. “You think you can outdrink me?”He chuckles again, and it’s not fair, really, the way the sound rumbles out of his chest and into hers. 

“ _ I’m certain I can outdrink you _ ,” he insists. The frustrating thing is, he’s probably right. He’s bigger than her, and all muscle, and a fisherman, and now she’s just thinking about his shoulders, how they might feel under her hands while he hovers above her, his lips on her neck. “ _ There’s not much else to do up north _ ,” he continues, and she has to physically shake her head to tune back in to the conversation. “ _ I got pretty good at it _ .” 

“That sounds like a challenge,” she says, and it comes out a little breathier than she means it to, distracted as she is. She hears the answering hitch in his breathing in response, and hot embarrassment sits high in her chest, waiting for him to say something, or hang up, or make some kind of joke. 

“ _ Fine then,”  _ he says _. “I dare you.”  _

Subconsciously, her fingers toy with the drawstring of her sleep shorts, and she shouldn’t be thinking about this, shouldn’t be wanting to slide her fingers beneath the waistband, get off to the sound of his voice. They’ve just met, kissed only once. In total, their relationship is seven hours old. 

“You’re dangerous,” she says, the words falling out of her mouth before she can stop them. 

“ _ Dangerous how? _ ” he asks, and he knows what he’s doing to her now, has to. 

“Don’t be stupid,” she says, but there’s no edge to it, and there’s that fucking laugh again. There’s quiet, static on the line, filled with possibilities, tense and crackling. “I should go,” she says, and the silence hangs for half a moment more. 

“ _ Should you _ ?” he says, and he’s teasing, but there’s caution in his tone, too, like he’s afraid he’s crossed a line. 

“I don’t want to,” she says, flirtation and intention clear in her tone. “But I should.” 

“ _ Why should you? _ ” he asks, and there’s a lilt in his voice, sweetened by liquor and darkness. She wants to cave in to the sound, to let this current take them wherever it wants to go and damn the consequences. But Mickey is on the other side of the wall, and her mother is prone to opening doors without knocking.

“I don’t want to wake up my family,” she says, and he sighs. 

“ _ That’s a pretty good reason _ ,” he admits, because he doesn’t want her to hang up, either. 

“So…” she says, and trails off.

“ _ So…” _ he answers. And the silence this time nearly hums with possibility, with the energy of things unsaid and words too large and heated for the fragile, delicate thing growing in their hands. “ _ So how about dinner?” _ he asks, and her answering smile is automatic. 

“Dinner sounds great,” she says, and the butterflies in her chest finally settle, a disappointment as much as a relief. They’ve strayed out of dangerous territory, as much as she was enjoying being in it. “Day after Christmas okay?” she asks. 

_ “I’m uh,”  _ he says, and her heart sinks as she prepares for rejection. “ _ Seeing family, _ ” he says. “ _ Day after that?” _ She bites down a smile. 

“Yeah,” she says, ‘Yeah, that sounds great. I’ll see you then.” And there’s that silence again, electrifying in the way it hovers between them, filling every word, every breath with meaning. 

“ _ Goodnight, Kiara,” _ he says, and she can hear his grin, shivering at the way her name rolls off his tongue. 

“Goodnight, JJ.” 

She hangs up first, letting the phone drop onto her chest, and she can’t help the smile that takes over her face. She hopes this is more than a crush, more than mere infatuation. It feels like it might be -- there’s something so cosmically right about the way she feels in his arms, the way her hand fits in his. Butterflies fill her stomach at the thought of his touch, and she bites her lip as she remembers the feeling of his against her own. The 27th feels ages away. 

The next day is Christmas Eve, and there’s an insufferable brunch her parents force her to attend. She usually gets drunk with Sarah and makes fun of all the men in stupidly-colored morning suits, but Sarah landed in Monaco earlier that morning, so Kiara just keeps up a steady stream of mocking snapchats, instead. Mickey gets in a few good sarcastic comments under her breath, but it’s not the same. Anna glares at them for refusing to mingle, but they stick to the wall and eat cold eggs off of overly-expensive plates and mutter to each other. Topper Thornton, Sarah’s ex, spots her across the crowd at one point and tries to head over, and Kiara grabs Mickey by the back of her suit jacket and hauls her between them, breaking eye contact and inhaling her soggy toast at a dangerous speed. Mickey laughs so hard, orange juice comes out of her nose, and then Kiara has to take her to the bathroom because her eyes won’t stop streaming. 

They spend the rest of the day doing the traditional cookie-baking, and Kiara finds herself smiling more often than not, bickering with her sister over the proper decorating technique (Mickey tends to prefer delicate, life-accurate details while Kiara enjoys abstract impressionism and as much frosting as possible) while Mike laughs and Anna yells at them to stop fighting. This was a common routine in their household, growing up -- Mickey and Kiara would tease and pick at each other, all in good fun, and Anna would think that they were completely serious and attempt to get them to stop which, of course, would only make it worse. Anna ends up leaving the kitchen to lay down, and comes back to the cookies decorated and the kitchen an absolute mess, both girls up to their elbows in the sink with food dye on their faces and in their hair. 

Mickey surprises all of them by politely declining when Anna asks her to get dressed for church, and Kiara stops the ensuing argument by also volunteering to stay behind. Anna’s mouth falls open, and, instead of saying anything, Mike gently places a hand on his wife’s shoulder, and they go alone to the evening service. The sisters wrap themselves up in the quilts they made with their grandmother as kids and watch  _ Die Hard _ , sipping extra-strength eggnog and chowing down on chocolate covered pretzels and Christmas cookies. Halfway through, Mickey leans her head on Kiara’s shoulder, and Kiara leans back. 

Mike insists they leave out cookies for ‘Santa’, even though his wife and both of his adult children know that he’s the one that will be eating them later. Kiara remembers leaving out soymilk as a kid, supposedly to ‘give Santa a break from all that dairy’, and wonders how she didn’t connect the dots between that particular tradition and her lactose-intolerant father. Mickey’s jaw drops when Kiara brings it up, and the entire family laughs uproariously. She falls asleep grateful for all that she grew up with, and feels reluctantly grateful that she came home for Christmas. 

The next morning comes with its usual array of uptight sweaters from her mother and other relatives that she will leave on the floor of her closet and never wear and a few pleasant surprises from her father and her sister. Mickey got her a Coldest ™ water bottle she can clip to the outside of her pack and a new toiletry organizer, which Kiara is grateful for, because hers is falling apart, and Mike got her a small, leather-bound journal, the newest in a long-standing tradition. Kiara hands out her presents from Thailand, and they are appropriately ooh-ed and aw-ed over before the relatives come over and the abject horror begins. 

Mike’s side of the family comes over for lunch and Anna’s for dinner, a tradition that alternates every year. Personally, Kiara prefers when Mike’s family comes for dinner, as they are infinitely more agreeable and overall much more fun. When dinner is for Anna’s family, everyone has to act falsely well-behaved and therefore cannot get too drunk at lunch. She does ‘take a walk’ with her cousins, and as soon as they hit the outskirts of the Cut, Rosie, the oldest, pulls two joints out of her purse and passes them around. Mickey is thrilled to be included for the first time. 

Both girls shower and change before Anna’s family gets there, but they’re both still toasted by the time dinner is on the table, and every time Aunt Jeanine starts a sentence with ‘You know, the government --’ Mickey snorts and Kiara chokes on whatever bite or sip she’s just put in her mouth. They catch a few glares from their mother, and a disappointed glance from their father, but, besides the massive amount of roast beef and potatoes they both consume, nothing they do is particularly damning. The hug that Mickey gives Kiara before they both go off to bed is lingering and sincere, and Kiara feels closer to her sister than she has in years. 

She spends all of the next day watching TV shows in bed, eating Christmas chocolate and feeling generally wiped out. Sarah texts her fabulous pictures from Monaco and Kiara mostly sends emojis back.She tries not to feel disappointed when JJ doesn’t call, but she knows the draining exhaustion that comes from interacting with family, so she tells her anxious brain to shut the hell up and turns on another episode of Great British Bake-Off. At some point, Mickey crawls in next to her and loudly criticizes all of the bakers during technical challenges, even when everything she’s ever baked has come out of a box -- a fact that Kiara reminds her of. 

(“I  _ read _ ,” Mickey protests. 

“Cookbooks?” Kiara shoots back. 

“Shut up.”)

JJ does call late the next morning, and Kiara practically pounces on her phone to answer it, trying not to sound out of breath when she picks up. 

“Hey!” she says, stock-still and ramrod-straight, even alone in the middle of her bedroom, forcing a smile to sound as casual and upbeat as possible. 

“ _ Hey,” _ he says, and there’s a chuckle in his voice, like he’s holding down surprise at her enthusiasm. “ _ Are we still on for tonight? _ ” he asks. 

“Yeah!” she replies, and then cringes at the force behind her voice and continues more quietly. “Yeah, absolutely. I’m really looking forward to it.” 

“ _ I am too _ ,” he says, and the words make her heart do a stupid dance in her chest.  _ “Do you mind meeting me somewhere?”  _ and then his tone drops, and she can imagine him scrubbing at the back of his head, fingers in his shaggy blond hair. “ _ I don’t really have a car on the island.” _

“Yeah,” she said, her thumb brushing against her lip, an unconscious gesture of anxiety. “Do I need to pick you up?”

_ “No _ ,” he laughs. “ _ No, I’ve got a motorcycle. You know Rixon’s cove?” _ she shakes her head, before remembering that he can’t see her. 

“Uh, no,” she says, surprised that she doesn’t. She thought she knew every inch of the island she’d grown up on, every bay and dip and cave. But her parents kept her out of the Cut as much as they could, conditioned her to stay away from that side of the island so much she avoided it subconsciously, marked it as unfamiliar, disallowed territory. She’d ventured in, of course, but hadn’t felt comfortable enough to explore it like she did Figure Eight, or the nebulous territory between the two. He gives her vague directions (it isn’t on google maps -- she looks) and she writes them down on a post-it, sticking it to the back of her phone and hoping the vague tangle of roads she’s drawn is enough. 

Kiara spends approximately an hour freaking out about what to wear, and Mickey lays on her bed pretending to be helpful but really just scrolling through tiktok and sniggering. She finally settles on jeans and an oversized olive-green sweater. Cute, but casual, and good for the weather. She pulls her hair half-up and puts on an old denim jacket that’s fraying at the cuffs and has a hole where the collar folds over. It was Mike’s, back in the day, and she appropriated it at some point in high school. There’s always junk in the pockets -- this time it’s a handful of change, a silver watch battery, two bottle caps, and the wheel to some storage container. Also her favorite lighter, which she hasn’t seen in a while. 

“How do I look?” she asks her sister. Mickey shrugs, and Kiara figures that’s the most she’s going to get out of her. Mickey picks the oddest times to be a good sibling. 

She drums her thumbs against the steering wheel the whole way there, her lower lip tucked between her teeth, the unconscious habit scraping her lips raw. It takes her a while, and more than a few dead ends, to get there, but she spots a red dirtbike and a familiar figure leaning against it, and pulls in. He’s wearing a pair of well-worn jeans, clean, but with rips in the knees, still, a white t-shirt, and a red flannel. There’s a gray beanie crammed down over his unruly hair, golden strands flipping out from underneath the brim and catching the last of the sun as it sets over the island. He looks, in a word, adorable. 

“Hey!” he says as she steps out of her car, and smiles, and, somehow, gets cuter. 

“Hey,” she says, heat rising in her face, brushing nervous, sweaty hands off on her jeans. 

“You look great,” he says, swallowing and tucking his hands in his back pockets.

She holds her hands out to her sides and does a little dip, a mock curtsy that feels just as dumb as it probably looks, but is too late to back away from now. “Well thanks,” she says. “You clean up pretty nicely, yourself.” 

He laughs, and shrugs, his head jerking to the side, eyes dropping to his feet. “Thanks,” he says, laughing like he doesn’t believe her. Then, he holds up a backpack. “You ready?” She bites down on a smile, and nods. 

He stops just above the tideline, pulling a blanket and two foil-wrapped somethings out of his backpack. He’d strapped a cooler to the back of his bike with bungee cords, and he drops that in the sand, too, before collapsing, himself, a jumble of smile and limbs and sandy hair. The dying light reflects off the water and sets the very evening on fire. There’s something golden in her chest as he squints up at her, liquid and glowing and steady, even as it flows. 

“Well?” he asks. She sits. He hands her one of the foil bundles. “Hope you like burritos.”

“I love burritos,” she confirms, and starts unpeeling the foil. Steam rises into the cool evening air, and JJ looks almost apprehensive as she takes the first bite. 

“Good?” he asks, and when she nods, mouth full, he finally relaxes. Taking out a penknife, he pulls two beers out of the cooler, uncapping one and offering it. She takes it and washes down her first bite. It’s good beer. 

They don’t talk much as they eat, but JJ keeps stealing quick, sideways glances at her. It makes her a bit self-conscious, how intently he watches her when he thinks she’s not paying attention, but his gaze locks onto something deep in her chest, reminding her of that familiarity she felt when she first locked eyes with him on the plane. It’s terrifying in its intensity. She catches him at one point, grease dripping down her chin, and when she meets his gaze, she almost immediately looks away, hand coming up to cover her chin. He laughs, and she does too. 

“Sorry,” she says, once she’s swallowed. 

“S’fine,” he mutters, and it’s like he can’t look away from her, eyes constantly drawn back to her smile. “S’cute,” he adds, and she snorts. 

“Yeah,” she says, “Totally adorable.” 

“I mean,” he says, and shrugs, “you are.” When she looks up, he’s smiling, wide and self-satisfied, and she shoves at his shoulder. It feels childish even as she does it, but it’s easy, joyous, light and natural, instead of feeling stupid, like she thinks it should. It feels like high school in all the best ways, like when she’s with him, nothing matters but making him laugh, the way his hand feels on her thigh, the jokes they make and the things they learn about each other. The sun slowly sets, sinking behind the island and casting everything in shades of gold and grey.

After they finish eating, they’re silent for a while, watching the waves. It should be awkward, but it’s not, just comfortable and relaxing after the chaos of the holidays. He leans back on his hands and her head settles on his shoulder. The warmth of him sinks through her sweater, the smell of pine and salt air drifting around both of them. Peace settles into her skin, like on the plane, his fingers loosely twisted through hers, quiet and calm, timeless in a liminal kind of way. It’s almost shocking in its serenity, surprising that such a sought-after moment has come again in so little time, and at home of all places. The sunset helps, the sound of the crashing waves, the beer and the good food settling in her body, but the common denominator is JJ, his presence somehow turning off the anxious ferris wheel that usually turns in the back of her mind. He doesn’t seem like a calm guy, in general. She doesn’t know him well, but he’s always fidgeting -- even now, he curls his fist in the sand and shifts his fingers up and down through the fine grains. But there’s something about his touch that turns off everything else, brings her the kind of silence she seeks across the world. 

“Where are you headed next?” he asks, and there might be sadness in his voice. She picks her head up off of his shoulder and looks at him as he studies the ocean. He won’t look at her, his clear blue eyes focused on the horizon. She didn’t notice his eyelashes before. They’re blond, dusty and soft-looking and stupidly long. 

“South America,” she says, “Brazil, I think.” His face twitches, a grimace appearing before being schooled away again. He pulls his knees up, rests his elbows there, folding his hands together. She props her chin on his bicep, and his eyes dart to hers before flicking away again. “You know,” she says, her heart racing, the decision crawling up her throat even as she makes it. “You could come with me.” His eyes snap to hers, wide and amazed, so beautiful it steals her breath, just for a moment. 

“Really?” he says, a breath, a thought spoken aloud before it is even fully formed. Something hurts about the shock in his tone, like he’d never consider that she would want him for anything more than happiness in passing moments. She nods, tucking her face against his arm, and he catches her chin with his other hand, pulling her in. 

There’s something akin to homecoming in the way he kisses her, warmth and familiarity, even from a man that’s half a stranger. She missed him somehow, in the few short days since she saw him last, cherishes the feeling of his rough fingertips on her face. His hand reaches into her hair and he turns to face her. One of her hands comes up to cover his, and the kiss is gentle and slow, kind and unhurried as they sink into each other. 

It’s almost funny -- two souls always on the run, searching for something that was waiting for them at home the whole time. He went north, looking for escape in hard work and cold water. She went east, hoping it might be in ancient cathedrals or faraway jungles. Hope, understanding, love, comfort -- it’s all wrapped up in this other person, this complete stranger that shares a home, a childhood. Someone that grew up beside her without either of them ever knowing. She never thought someone from her tiny little island could feel the same way she did, know the ache for adventure that lives behind her ribs, understand the need to escape just to come home, never thought that anyone else would fit in so perfectly beside her. But here he is. 

When she pulls away, she’s fallen, knocked from the sky and crashing down to earth in his eyes. It feels impossible -- it’s been a week, no, less -- but she sees the same kind of possibility in his gaze. There’s a gravity pulling them toward each other, forceful, impossible to resist, and her blood hums with excitement and awareness of the vast unknown they have found themselves tumbling through. The wind picks up the strands of golden hair peeking out from under his beanie, dancing around his sharp jawline. Words burn in her chest, something she’s never felt, something she cannot say, not yet. It sparks under her tongue, shifting and struggling to be free, a sentiment that terrifies her, but might be reflected on his face, if she lets herself believe in it. 

It’s difficult to understand how something as simple as a kiss can labor so heavily, carry such a burden on its back. But she falls back into him so easily, laying down next to him on the blanket in the sand, her hands in his hair, one of his hands tucked just under her sweater, cold hands against warm skin. She doesn’t know how much time passes, only that they speak of everything and nothing at all as the sky grows dark above them, lips meeting again and again, threads of conversation woven together and unraveling as mouths converse and move together. 

The stars are firmly installed by the time he pulls away from her, breaking the warm bubble that’s surrounded them for the last few hours. “I almost forgot!” he says, and leans over to rustle in his backpack pulling out a small velvet bag, the appearance of which makes her stomach flip over, apprehension and excitement, all the same. 

“I got something for you.” she gives him a look as he hands it to her. “It’s nothing much, but, y’know,” he shrugs, that head-jerk combination that’s become so characteristic. “It’s Christmas.” She tips the bag out into her palm, and it really isn’t anything much at all, a simple bracelet, black cord and a small, blue glass dolphin strung in the middle, with a chain clasp. She attempts to do it up herself, but he makes a small noise and gestures for her hand, so she holds it out, and he attempts to fasten it around her wrist. 

“JJ, it’s beautiful,” she says, watching him as he fiddles with the tiny hook-and-eye. 

“It’s nothing,” he protests, smoothing his thumb over her pulse point as the bracelet settles into place. She catches his hand as he pulls away, and his eyes, navy blue in the low light, flick up to meet hers. He seems to lose his breath, put on pause, his ceaseless movement stopping as he drowns in her gaze. 

“It’s beautiful,” she repeats, one hand coming up to hold his face, holding him there, making sure he’s looking into her eyes. “Thank you, really.” He tries to shake his head, drop his gaze, break the connection, but she leans forward and captures his lips with hers. She can feel his surprise, but he responds in kind, and she holds him there, pouring what she can’t say through her kiss, hoping he understands what his gift really means to her, despite the cost or the size or anything else. 

“Damn,” he says, pulling away, cheeks flushed and eyes wide, starry and dazed, like pieces of the night sky have fallen and settled in his face. “Okay.” She ducks away, flushed, herself, and digs in her jacket, pulling out another twine bracelet, similar to the one she gave Mickey, but with green and blue beads woven through. She’d put it there in case of this exact situation, so she wouldn’t be meeting him empty handed. She hadn’t really intended it for anyone. She’d made a separate one for Sarah and already had one of her own. Honestly, she doesn’t know why she made this one, but it’ll find its home with JJ. 

“Here,” she says, holding it out in a much less ceremonious manner. He smiles, so wide and genuine it’s almost its own source of light in the darkness. 

“For me?” he asks, and she shoves his shoulder before helping him tie it on. “Thanks, Kie,” he says, sarcasm gone, sincere as he catches her gaze once more. She shrugs, and he takes her face in his hand, directing her as she did him. “Really.” He kisses her, and the spark that passes between them feels like wonder and possibility and a thousand other things, the beginning of a story told across miles and years, epic in its yet-unknown proportions. 

When he pulls away from her she feels like stardust with skin, moonbeams collected and made into a girl. “Hi,” she says, small and soft. He smiles, his chin ticking up, nose brushing against hers. 

“Hey,” he replies. Giggling, they press their foreheads together, galaxies orbiting, arms reaching out and locking, collapsing in on each other to create something larger, beyond the boundaries of either of their understanding. 

“This is crazy, right?” she asks, a whisper said in hesitance, a question living in the hope that he feels it, too. 

“Insane,” he answers. His hands haven’t stopped moving, twisting through her hair, stroking gently up and down her arms, resting on her waist and sliding over her thighs before landing somewhere else. She feels, in a word, wanted, desired, all the other things that she never thought would surround her the way the warmth of him does, the smell of pine and salt air, mixing with the night breeze and wreathing around her, heady and intoxicating, pulling her toward him, invisible, gravitational -- inevitable. 

She doesn’t know who moves first but then they’re kissing again, more like a pressing together of grins, and he pulls, sending her tumbling over him, straddling his hips, one of his hands at her waist to steady her, the other directing her mouth with expertise. Nothing can happen here, on a cold, windy beach in the middle of December, and they kiss until their lips are chapped and raw, laughing like giddy teenagers. 

At some point, her phone lights up in the sand, and the contrast in the darkness is what alerts her to just how dark it’s gotten, even with the moonlight reflecting across the ocean, the stars wheeling above them in the sky. JJ catches sight of the name. 

“Who’s -- sbarro?” he asks, sitting up. 

Kiara laughs, tucking her face against his shoulder. “My best friend,” she says. “I’m ‘Kiwi’ in her phone it’s -- “ she picks her head up, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and he tucks the other side behind her ear, an unconscious featherlight touched accompanied by that beautiful grin. “It’s an old joke.” She reaches for her phone, the light of it blinding both of them. 

**_Sbarro:_ ** I never thought I would be saying this but Monaco is actual hell 

Wheezie is still a brat 

I thought because I missed her, she might not be

I was wrong

Rose was wrong-er tho which was very satisfying. But she also got me a fatass ruby   
necklace for christmas 

It’s ‘for display’ apparently

I mean who DOES THAT

Um hi hello r u seeing this 

Omg r u with Plane Boy 

Ur gonna make me suffer rn’t u 

Kiaraaaaa text me backkkkk

“Plane boy?” JJ asks, unable to help himself when he catches a glance of the nickname as she sits in his lap. She pulls her phone back into her chest and glares at him without malice. 

“Don’t snoop,” she says, pouting. He kisses the tip of her nose, smiling. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, sarcasm sinking into every syllable. She scrolls through the messages, half her mind still wrapped up in his kiss. Her thumbs hover over the keyboard, but there’s no coherent reply there, just JJ’s lips on her neck, the smell of his pine deodorant drifting around her, dragging all her attention back to him. Looking up, she finds him staring at her. 

“What?” she asks, trying to set her mouth into something stern, but the way his eyes sparkle as he stares at her makes it impossible to keep a smile off her face. 

“Nothing,” he says, but he’s laughing, and now she is too. He smooths a hand down her back, large and warm and strong, and the movement lights something in her belly, wanting and soft, all at once. She leans in, phone forgotten, and kisses him, long and deep. She wants to stay with him here forever, in this world of stars and waves that they have created, relying only on the other for warmth. But with Sarah’s messages, reality has crept in; her fingers are frozen, and she’s certain that her mother will be worried.

“I should go home,” she sighs when she pulls away. He looks like he wants to protest, but his nose is red and running, and she can feel his cold hands on her back. 

“Promise me first,” he says, and then, at her expression, explains. “Promise me I’ll see you again.” 

She laughs, loud and bright, and the sound puts a smile on his face. “Of course you’ll see me again,” she says, and then, trying not to let her voice shake with the uncertainty , “You’re coming to South America with me, aren’t you?”

He looks at her, dazed and surprised, his grin wide and impossibly beautiful. “You weren’t kidding,” he says, a realization rather than a question. She swears it’s the night sky itself she sees in his eyes. 

“Well,” she breathes, sudden anxiety eclipsing giddy excitement, “only if you want to.” 

“Yeah,” he laughs, his thumbs sliding gently back and forth across the side of her ribs, his hands framing her perfectly. She feels safe, held there, anchored but not stifled, not stuck. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I want to.” Her hands come up, pushing his hair back from his face, her fingernails dragging lightly against his scalp. He leans back, like a cat arching into her touch, and she takes her time memorizing the planes of his face, dragging her fingers over the sharp cut of his jaw, brushing her thumb over the high plane of his cheekbones. She watches her fingertips as they trace over his features, but he watches her eyes, sky trained on the earth. Her thumb brushes over his lips, and his breath hitches, the small noise pulling her gaze back to his. She knows if she kisses him now, she won’t stop.

“I should go home,” she says again, and, after a beat, an instant that feels like a year, she climbs off of him. 

**_Kiwi:_ ** HI HELLO IM SORRY 

I JUST GOT HOME FROM POSSIBLY THE BEST DATE OF MY LIFE 

Sidenote: you should really learn how to /fucking chill/ but also I know that with you that 

is genuinely impossible so in this instance I will forgive you

**_Sbarro:_ ** BEST DATE OF YOUR WHAT

ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME 

YOU BEST NOT BE FUCKING WITH ME 

**_Kiwi:_ ** I AM NOT FUCKING WITH YOU 

In other news i may be in love 

**_Sbarro:_ ** WHAT 

KIARA

BRO YOU CAN’T JUST SAY SHIT LIKE THAT WHEEZUS FUCKING CHRIST

**_Kiwi:_ ** it’s Plane Boy okay he’s fucking perfect 

**_Sbarro:_ ** OMG WAIT REALLY 

TELL ME EVERYTHING 

**_Kiwi:_ ** okay so 

**_Sbarro:_ ** god, i love an okay so 

**_Kiwi:_ ** he told me about Rixon’s Cove which apparently I did not know about which  y’know, is New For Me, and then he brought /burritos/ which like you know how I feel  about burritos and then asklgh hE GOT ME A BRACELET FOR CHRISTMAS which like  ofc I did not expect bc we just met and everything buT IT’S A LITTLE BLUE DOLPHIN  sarah it’s so cute like he’s only just met me and has given me something that is my exact  personal style?? And then I had this extra bracelet from thailand that I had no idea why I  made but like I grabbed it anyway and gave it to him and like it looked so good and like..  Weirdly natural on him? Idk if that makes sense that probably doesn’t make sense but  like?? We just talked and made out and then talked and then made out some more and  not to be you but like WHEEZUS fucking CHRIST he is so hot and funny and kind and  adorable and also I may have asked him to come to south america with me??? And uh

He said yes.

**_Sbarro:_ ** okay wheezus almighty give me a fucking second 

Okay well this is a lot to take in but FIRST OF ALL 

I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU DIDN’T TELL ME ABOUT HIM BEFORE YA BATCH

AND ALSO 

The bracelet thing?? So fucking cute -- both the dolphin and oFC THAT YOU HAD ONE 

FOR HIM??? HELLO??? FATE?? IS THAT YOU???

Are you really taking him to south america tho like 

That’s kind of a big deal are you really gonna take him 

**_Kiwi:_ ** I mean I guess? I asked and he said yes so if he doesn’t hate me by the time I leave next 

month then yes

**_Sbarro:_** fucking hell okay 

I mean I can’t say I’m surprised like 

This is definitely on brand but like what kind of romcom bullshit??

**_Kiwi:_ ** I KNOW OKAY

But like remember the palm reader from the boardwalk

**_Sbarro:_ ** oh god not the fucking palm reader again 

**_Kiwi:_ ** NO DUDE SERIOUSLY

She told me not to take opportunities for granted and to follow my sense of adventure 

and intuition

So that is what I am doing 

**_Sbarro:_ ** you recognize that you’re clinically insane right 

**_Kiwi:_ ** I am in fact painfully aware 

**_Sbarro:_ ** as long as you know

The days following her impossibly romantic beach date with JJ, he calls every night. Somehow, they piece together a plan -- he gets his passport paperwork sent out, and they’ll leave for Argentina as soon as he gets it in the mail. It’ll be a month, maybe more, and they’ve agreed that if things fall apart -- which, of course, she hopes that they don’t -- she’ll go, and then at least he’ll have a passport. 

He comes to the Wreck one night, and they spend hours talking and laughing at throwing fries at each other, and Kiara promises the closers that she’ll sweep and lock up so they can stay after hours. They get hungry again around midnight, and Kiara makes them eggs and hashbrowns in the kitchen, gets distracted when JJ hoists her up on the prep table and puts his hands up her shirt. She only tears herself away from him when the potatoes start to burn, and warns him not to complain when they come out a bit charred. After, she makes him help her clean up the kitchens properly, to restaurant-closing standards, and then they sit facing each other on the long bench that lines one wall. They get closer, and closer, and then she’s sitting in his lap, and then her shirt is on the floor and his is, too. 

He walks her to her car, pushes her up against it with a quiet power, leaves a promise on her lips. Everything about him leaves her dangerously breathless, and she watches him ride off on that ridiculous dirtbike with her heart pounding behind her ribs, screaming out for adventure, tripping over itself in anticipation of the love it knows is coming, the story waiting to be told. 

His buddy -- the one he’s staying with that remains miraculously unnamed -- is throwing a New Year’s Eve party that he’s obliged to attend, and she’s already committed to going to Sarah’s and John B’s thing, so they bemoan the fact they won’t be together at midnight and JJ promises to buy breakfast the next morning. She promises to hold him to it, and the heat in his returned teasing tone makes her lift on her tones and twirl as she paces the length of her room, biting her lip and ducking her head like he can see the foolish expression rising on her face. 

Sarah begs her for details over text, especially as Wheezie and Rafe continue to drive her insane. She sends Kiara a snap of the ruby necklace from Rose (it really is ridiculous), and in return, Kiara sends her a selfie from JJ’s arms, taken during an afternoon at the beach. His face isn’t in it, just his arms wrapped around her middle, his face buried in her neck, messy blond hair, wet from the sea, sticking up from behind her shoulder. Sarah sends her a video snap of Rafe arguing with Rose, the vein popping out from his red forehead. The camera flips around to Sarah’s face, grumpy and overall phenomenally done, Wheezie throwing up a peace sign behind her. She’s playing with a nintendo switch from an overly fancy sofa with heinous upholstery, a lime-green shag blanket over her knees, classically Wheezie in the contrast of aesthetics. The video makes Kiara laugh, and when she looks up from her phone, JJ is beaming at her, his chin resting on her shoulder. 

“What?” she asks. 

“You’re adorable,” he says, and she laughs, and kisses him solidly. 

They don’t get to spend all their time together in the next few days -- JJ still has his friend, and Kiara her family, but she thinks about him the whole time, enough that Mickey calls her on it. On New Year’s Eve, she’s washing dishes after breakfast, and her little sister slides in next to her at the sink, bumping her shoulder into Kiara’s, leaning her weight on her hands. 

“Hey moonface,” she says. 

Kiara settles abruptly back down in the real world and turns to look at her. “Moon-what?” 

“What’s got you all…” Mickey picks up soap bubbles from the sink and flicks them at her. “Star-crossed.” 

“Nobody,” Kiara says, and then catches her mistake and corrects herself quickly. “I mean, nothing.” 

“So it’s a who!!” Mickey crows with delight, hopping up on the counter and bouncing her heels off the cabinets. “Girl, boy, or otherwise?”

Kiara tightens her mouth and glares at her. “There’s nobody.” 

Mickey leans into her space, brown eyes sparkling. They’re lighter than Kiara’s, nearly golden, and she used to be jealous of them, growing up. “You’re a really bad liar, Kiki.” Kiara rolls her eyes, even though Mickey is right. “What’s their name?” 

“His name is JJ,” Kiara admits, putting a dish in the drying rack. Mickey squeals with glee and Kiara points a pruny finger at her. “And if you tell Mom, I will gut you.”

“Is it that guy from the hotel?” Mickey asks, dropping her tone to a conspiratorial whisper that can usually be heard through the whole house. Kiara snaps a towel at her and she scowls. “You told Mom he was a friend from high school, I bet that was bullshit.” 

“I met him on the plane, actually,” she mutters. 

“The  _ plane _ ??” Mickey hisses, and Kiara snaps a towel at her again. “You can’t actually be dating a stranger you met on the plane.” The sentence snaps a rubber band against the dream-state she’s been living in. She supposes she is dating JJ, in a manner of speaking. But her feelings for him seem bigger than that, bigger than ‘dating’ or ‘boyfriend’ or any of those other words that she’s gotten used to. But that’s the thing about him. He’s so beyond the boundaries of ordinary, crashing down into her life like a meteor, bright and burning -- course-altering, life-changing. A boy made of sunbeams and warmth, sarcastic jabs and beaming smiles. He feels like a partner-in-crime already, like she can shift her gaze and he’s there, already in her eye-line, ready for the next thing. 

“I’m not dating him,” she insists, even though she definitely is. “He’s just --” 

“Just what?” Mickey prompts. 

“I don’t know,” Kiara answers, truthfully. It scares the hell out of her, what she feels for him, how it seems so beyond definition. 

Mickey jumps off the counter. “You’re dating him.” 

“Sure,” Kiara says, as her sister wanders back upstairs. “You could call it that.” 

A few hours later, Kiara is made up and dressed to kill, high-waisted black shorts and a tiny dark-purple crop top, glitter on her cheekbones and her curls moussed and dried to perfection, killer volume and clear ringlets. She doesn’t often bemoan JJ’s lack of a smartphone, but right now, she really,  _ really _ wants to send him a picture of what he’s missing. She packs an overnight bag -- she’s planning to crash on the pull-out at the Chateau -- and grabs her keys, the sun setting over the channel and setting the living room alight in shades of gold. Anna’s sitting in the living room, magazine in her lap, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. The party doesn’t start until later, but Sarah’s been back since that morning, and she wants to catch her up on all the happiness that’s been crashing over her like a perfect swell. 

She gives Anna a kiss, and her mother waves goodbye halfheartedly, focused on her magazine, circling post-Christmas deals. Kiara turns and takes a last look at her mother before she leaves, keys in her hand, jacket folded over her arm. She can’t help but feel like everything’s going to change, after tonight. 

The drive to the Chateau doesn’t take long, and then Sarah’s barrelling out the front door and into her arms, a sunset-lit reunion long overdue. Kiara’s best friend has always been somewhat of a paradox in her life, a relationship that makes little sense but always endures, across time and oceans and borders, across everything that’s tried to pull them apart. They fell out a little bit, at the end of freshman year, but in their effort to find new friends, they both joined the track team -- which Sarah kept up with and Kiara did not -- falling back into each other again and again. She loves Sarah with something that lives in her bones, the same kind of inevitability that links her to JJ. It’s part of the reason she felt so comfortable talking to him the first time -- he felt, somehow, like home. 

“Oh, I  _ missed  _ you!” Sarah cries, before pulling back and looking her up and down. “ _ God, _ you look great, you bitch.” 

“It’s the washing down elephants,” Kiara laughs, flexing one of her arms. “Gets you pretty ripped, pretty fast.” 

“Glad you got rid of the smell,” Sarah quips, and Kiara laughs, her face splitting into a real smile -- a true smile, immediately comfortable with her best friend, no worries about the two years they’ve spent apart, the millions of moments they haven’t shared. It’s just easy, falling back into the way they’ve always been. “Oh, it’s so nice to hear your laugh,” Sarah says, sentiment a rare, but genuine emotion in her eyes. 

“Let’s never stay away that long again, okay?” Kiara says, reaching out and putting her hand on Sarah’s cheek. Sarah leans into the touch, tears welling in both girls’ eyes as they crash back together. 

“Oh I said I wasn’t gonna cry!” Sarah groans, and Kiara laughs. 

“You always cry, you fucking pisces,” she says. 

Sarah pulls away, wiping at her under-eyes to keep her makeup from running. “Oh,” she snaps playfully, “says the goddamn cancer.” 

“And yet,” Kiara quips back, “I’m not the one crying.” 

Sarah points at Kiara, who is rapidly blinking. “You’re a terrible fucking liar.” 

“You love me anyway,” Kiara says. 

“Oh, unfortunately,” Sarah admits, and then wraps Kiara up in one more hug. Kiara fancies herself an adventurer, world-worn and weary, but she can’t deny how wonderful it feels to be back with her best friend. 

“Where are the boys?” Kiara asks, referring to John B and, of course, Pope, who will be back from Duke to cause mischief and shoot an inadvisable amount of explosives into the sky. 

“Scavenging the last of Heyward’s stock,” Sarah explains. “John B wanted to go to the mainland to get, and I quote ‘some real shit,’ but JJ said he knew a guy and Heyward always holds some back for Pope, so --” 

“Wait,” Kiara says, feeling like the entire world has exploded and she’s the only one that’s noticed, like she’s on a half-second lag, the rest of Sarah’s words like radio static. “Who-- who said he knows a guy?” 

“JJ,” Sarah repeats, holding her hand out to the side, wondering what the hell the big deal is. “John B’s best friend from high school,” she explains, like she’s spelling it out, “the one from Alaska. Jesse fucking James?” 

“Jesse fucking James,” Kiara echoes, shellshocked with the realization. 

Jesse James, the Best Friend, is JJ, the Plane Boy. The mysterious unnamed ‘buddy’ JJ has been staying with is John B. The buddy’s girlfriend that was coming to pick him up at the airport was  _ Sarah _ \-- John B’s best friend, who Sarah had to pick up, was  _ JJ _ . She marvels at her own stupidity as she starts to laugh, Sarah standing in the dirty driveway, still ridiculously confused. How many people end up on a plane from Seattle to Raleigh and are from the Outer Banks? Jesse James? JJ? She  _ really _ should have put this together sooner. Looking over Sarah’s shoulder, she even sees JJ’s dirt-bike leaned against the house. 

She nearly doubles over, she’s laughing so hard, gasping for air, one arm clutched around her stomach, the other hand pressed against her forehead in disbelief. Coincidence, again, somehow, impossibly, drawing them closer, fitting them together like puzzle pieces, some cosmic hand coming down from the heavens and shoving them into each other’s lives. They had so many near misses as children, as teenagers, living parallel lives on a tiny island and never crashing into each other. Someone up there had clearly had enough. 

“Kiara, babe,” Sarah says, taking a cautious step forward, hand held out, “say you can hear me.” 

“I can hear you,” she gasps. Sarah looks like she wants to ask something else, but, in that moment, the Twinkie pulls into the driveway, and three 20-something boys pile out of it, holding cardboard boxes and paper grocery bags, chattering excitedly. John B sees Kiara first, giving her a broad, open smile, and then Pope, who nods with a polite sort of acknowledgement. He liked her, when he first met her, tried to make a move and made it awkward. They don’t know each other well, but they’re friendly.

JJ sees her last -- stopping dead when he realizes that John B and Pope have stopped talking, watching Kiara laugh weakly, spitting out fits of giggles and stopping every few seconds so she can breathe. “Kie --” he breathes, chuckling and then shifting his weight, the bags rustling in his arms, “What are you --” his eyes flick to Sarah, and then John B, and then back to Kiara, like he’s waiting for someone to explain the joke. “What are you doing here?” 

“I could ask you the very same fucking question,” she says, eyebrows raised and eyes wide, like nothing more could happen that could shock her, in this moment. 

“You… know each other?” John B asks, still holding an enormous box stuffed with fireworks, looking between JJ and Kiara. Kiara can’t stop laughing, so she’s not much help, but Sarah’s mouth drops open when she sees the twine bracelet, still secured around JJ’s wrist. Quickly, and a few minutes late, she puts together all of the pieces still settling into each other in Kiara’s mind. 

“YOU!” she cries, pointing at JJ, brown eyes comedically wide. The word rings out over the messy yard, and JJ looks appropriately terrified. “YOU’RE PLANE BOY!!” 

“Plane Boy?!?” John B and Pope say at the same time. 

“I’m… plane --?” JJ’s sweet forehead is wrinkled, blue eyes half-closed in confusion, and then he looks at Sarah, and again at Kiara, and hangs his head, sighing. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m Plane Boy.” 

“I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ARE PLANE BOY!!” Sarah cries, and now she’s laughing hysterically, too, and John B and Pope still look hopelessly lost. 

“Remember the girl I told you about?” JJ asks, and John B and Pope both nod. He gestures to Kiara, looking, for all intents and purposes, mildly defeated and absolutely exhausted. 

Finally, everything settles behind John B’s blessedly blank eyes. “Thailand Girl!” he realizes.

Sarah and Kiara both lean back at that, like the information has been shot directly into their chests. “Thailand Girl?!?” they shout at the same time. 

“You called me Thailand Girl?” Kiara yells in JJ’s direction, while Sarah turns to her own boyfriend, also yelling at the same time: “Why didn’t you tell me about Thailand Girl?!?”

“In my defense, I’m 90% sure I told them your name,” JJ says, while Pope stands awkwardly, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. 

“You didn’t ask,” John B says plainly, and Sarah looks at him like she can’t believe she’s in love with him. 

“You’re the best friend,” Kiara says, breathless and disbelieving, her mind still tripping as she attempts to keep up. “Oh my god, it’s the same person.” 

“This is hilarious,” John B says cheerfully, looking between his best friend and his girlfriend’s best friend, delighting in the absurdity of the situation. 

Sarah smacks her boyfriend’s arm. “C’mon, you,” she says, “inside the house. Pope, you too.” Pope doesn’t need telling twice, hustling away from the group and into the old fishing shack. John B takes slightly more convincing, but eventually, Sarah gets him into the Chateau, and JJ and Kiara are left standing in the yard. Laboriously, he trundles toward the back porch, weighed down by his load of fireworks, and she follows. She climbs up the steps and opens the screen door for him, and he sets the bag downs by the door with a concerning amount of care, and then flops down on one of the old, tattered sofas there. She sits down on the opposite end, facing him. 

“So,” she says, sighing, a smile still on her face, blinking back tears of laughter so as not to fuck up her elaborate makeup. 

“So,” he says in return, more amused by her than anything else. 

“You’re the best friend,” she says, the knowledge finally settling in as she props her elbow on the back of the couch, leaning her forehead on her hand. 

“I am, in fact, the best friend,” he says. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, but it’s an empty question. He didn’t know, either. 

“Why didn’t you tell  _ me _ ?” he shoots back. 

“I had no idea,” she laughs, and he shrugs as if to say ‘ _ yeah, me fucking neither.’ _ She just looks at him then, her heart bubbling over and into the crisp golden evening. It never gets  _ really _ cold, not in the OBX, so she’s just on the edge of cold as the sun sets, in her shorts and an overly large sweatshirt over her party outfit. The sun is sinking into the marsh, everything gold and gleaming, turning the shabby porch into a fantastic scene, lit up like a movie. The light catches in his blond hair, mussed in that stupidly careless way that probably takes twenty minutes in the morning. He’s got a dark grey bandana tied around his forehead, looks adorably comfortable in a grey-and-blue drug rug and slouching jeans, paint-splattered and torn at the knee. The same huge work boots he had on the plane. He keeps putting his hands in his hair, his rings catching on the blond strands, and she can’t help but feel like her heart is already inescapably tied to him, like he’s tugging on that rope.

There’s nothing much more to talk about. They couldn’t have known. Well, they could have, if they weren’t so wrapped up in each other, lucid enough to notice all the details that could have tripped the whole story into place. But she likes it, a little bit, that his absurdity is part of their story. There’s no one to blame, no one to be angry at. It’s funny, is all, stupidly and impossibly so. She wants to be touching him, so she sits up and crawls across the sofa and into his lap, kissing him soundly. He’s surprised, but melts into her touch. 

“This is crazy,” he whispers when she pulls away, his forehead pressed to hers, eyes closed, like if he opens them she’ll just be a dream. 

She lets herself take him in, this beautiful, impossible boy. They’ve been pushed together over and over again, and she’s done fighting the universe, ready to jump, fall, whatever it is -- as long as it’s with him. “Insane,” she answers, and kisses him again. 

They sink into each other, then, freak of coincidence forgotten, taken into stride, just another thing on the long list of things that makes this thing between them an incredible feat of destiny. She gets drunk on his hands, how they ground her as his kisses draw the air from her lungs, dizzy and floating. Everything about him feels almost too good to be true, a man made of sunshine, fitting into her heart like there was always a space for him there, adoring her, willing to be dragged halfway across the world on a whim. She doesn’t love him, not yet, but she’s at the top of the cliff, admiring the view, just waiting for the right gust of wind to send her over the edge. 

A few minutes later, the screech of the back door opening startles them apart, and Pope comes onto the porch with his hands over his eyes. “Are you done?” he asks, and Kiara laughs, even as JJ looks like he’s wishing the earth would open and swallow him whole. “Food’s ready.” 

“Yeah,” Kiara says, swinging her leg over and standing up. “We’ll be right in.” She offers a hand to JJ, but he shifts awkwardly, attempting to slyly adjust the leg of his jeans. 

“I’ll uh --” he says, his flickering desperately between Kiara and Pope, who has now taken his hand off his eyes and is looking expectantly at JJ. “I’ll be right there.” It dawns over Kiara and Pope at the same time, and Kiara smiles, wide and self-satisfied, while Pope just backs quickly through the door and back into the house. “Gimme a sec,” JJ laughs, still half-embarrassed, and Kiara leans over him, her hair falling around them, kissing him one last time. 

“Don’t be long,” she whispers against his lips, and saunters back into the Chateau. 

Sarah is on her as soon as she’s through the door, and drags her into the kitchen immediately. John B is dutifully setting the table. Kiara raises an eyebrow at the sight, and Sarah hisses something about keeping him busy. She harasses Kiara for details, but Kiara can hardly do more than shrug before John B and Pope are in the kitchen, lurking like hungry pelicans. Sarah sighs, gives up, and lets them at the chili simmering on the stove, warning them not to eat too much if they’re going to drink like ‘fucking frat animals’ again. 

JJ comes in a few minutes later and puts his hand on Kiara’s hip as he reaches past her for a bowl, dropping a kiss on her temple like second nature, and Sarah makes delighted eye contact, eyebrows raised, smile devious, nosy, and honestly wonderful to see. Kiara just smiles back, shrugging, and leans into his side. JJ looks down at her, smiling as well, and her stupid heart feels like it might explode. 

The five of them around the small round table feels like a family already, all chattering and laughing over each other, JJ and Kiara telling tall tales from across the world, John B and the others crying ‘ _ bullshit!!’ _ at anything they deem an unforgivable exaggeration. JJ’s arm is draped over the back of Kiara’s chair, his bowl scraped clean, and she’s leaning forward, elbows on the table, arguing with Pope over the feasibility of the size of the spider in her story -- (“Spiders that big don’t even  _ live _ in southeast Asia --” “I’m sorry and which of us has  _ been  _ there, brain-boy --”) when the idea really starts to settle in JJ’s chest. This is his forever. Right here, in front of him, wearing stupid amounts of glitter, bracelets rattling as her hands fly through the air. He’s known her less than a week, sure, but it feels like she’s lived beside him her whole life, and, in a way, she has. He was always a boy tied to home. Even on his sojourn to Alaska, he was working for his uncle, the only Maybank that ever seemed to like him very much, giving him a chance straight out of high school when Luke couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore. He wants to see more, to be sure, but he wouldn’t have gone anywhere on his own -- he needed someone with him, someone as that perfect, consistent reminder of home, that he belongs somewhere, that people love him. He never expected to find it in her. 

Later, he holds her on the boat dock as they all shoot fireworks off over the marsh, drunk and reeling, young and blithely immortal, if only for the night. His arms fit perfectly around her waist, and she leans back into him as they watch John B’s roman candle shoots off and arcs through the darkness. His watch beeps, and she turns his wrist to look at the time. 

“Happy New Year,” she sighs, turning in his arms. He kisses her, an ending and a beginning all at once, the perfect conclusion to their whirlwind story, the beautiful first line of a narrative of epic proportions. 

“Happy New year.” 

(One Month Later) 

**_Kiwi:_ ** okay we r landed u can stop worrying about us now 

**_Sbarro:_ ** I will in fact never stop worrying about you two 

**_Kiwi:_ ** has any1 ever told u that u have prematurely reached ur ‘suburban mother’ stage 

**_Sbarro:_ ** Kiara Carrera you take that back right fucking now 

**_Kiwi:_ ** hm, shan’t 

**_Sbarro:_ ** i hate u 

**_Kiwi:_ ** no u don’t 

**_Sbarro:_ ** *heavy sigh*

In fact I do not 

**_Kiwi:_ ** u did not just “*heavy sigh*” me 

Sarah what fucking year is it 

Cause last I checked it was 2021 not 2013

**_Sbarro:_ ** listen have u met wheezie 

Her texting style has started to rub off on me

We should not be surprised but perhaps terrified

**_Kiwi:_ ** excellent point 

K cab’s here gotta go 

**_Sbarro:_ ** k text me when u get to ur hostel so I know u r not kidnapped in a bathtub full of ice 

**_Kiwi:_ ** lmao JJ read that over my shoulder and gave me the weirdest fucking look 

**_Sbarro:_ ** no one will ever truly understand our bond 

But also you’ll text me right

And send lots of pictures 

Both so that I know you’re not dead and so that I can live vicariously thru u 

**_Kiwi:_ ** yes to all of those things u maniac 

**_Sbarro:_ ** I may be a maniac but I am *your* maniac 

Oh and kiara, babe

Have fun 

**_Kiwi:_ ** I will ❤️

I love you!!

**_Sbarro:_ ** love you too ❤️

**Author's Note:**

> HI HELLO DID U LIKE IT I HOPE U DID   
> believe it or not, I wanted to do MORE but it was getting Too Long so pls have this wonderful piece that I am in fact proud of. 
> 
> [tumblr](https://homebody-nobody.tumblr.com/)  
> Thanks to [katie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaatiekinss/pseuds/kaatiekinss) and [Liv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OliviaRedfield/pseuds/OliviaRedfield) for beta'ing and ofc the [jiara gc](https://hvitstark.tumblr.com/gcshenanigans) for all their ideas, help, and support  
> don't forget to tip ur fic writers  
> (the tips are comments)


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